


Detour Ahead

by fixomnia



Category: Blue Bloods (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-19
Updated: 2018-10-28
Packaged: 2019-02-04 07:19:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 21
Words: 158,208
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12765939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fixomnia/pseuds/fixomnia
Summary: Sometimes the road takes you places you thought you'd escaped. Sometimes it calls you to drop everything and start something new. Sometimes you need both. A long road trip to romance via musical Security Detail in the Hamptons.CONTENT WARNING: Eddie's past sex assault in college. Past wartime atrocities.SPOILERS: Well, this has turned into an S8 Redux, so every line ever uttered is fair game.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Genealogies are now presented [here](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12765939/chapters/32458062) in lovely table form for your reference.

She’s already covered in blood, and Skip freaks out when she goes out of sight, so the ambulance attendants agree that she might as well ride along and question him on the way, instead of messing up her cruiser. She wishes she could clean herself up, too, but there’s a minor chance that some of the blood on Skip isn’t his, so she’ll have to wait to be swabbed down for evidence later.

“I’ll meet you at the hospital with clean stuff,” Jamie says to her, as the rear doors of the ambulance swing closed. “Text me if you want anything else.”

“Small black tactical bag, bottom of my locker,” she calls, just in time. He raises his hand and shrinks from her view as they speed away with full lights and sirens.

Holding onto the stretcher, she manoeuvres herself carefully alongside the male EMT who is working intently on Skip, taping his ribs and checking his pupils and breathing every two minutes. She’s not a medic, but it looks to her like his biggest danger is internal bleeding and concussion. His nose is broken. The assholes at the bar worked him over good. Kicked around the middle, mostly, after he fell.

What strikes her is the level of rage involved. How jacked up, how furious do a bunch of drunk guys have to be to go from sleazeball to trying to kill a man in just a few seconds?

She stifles a shudder as a sticky, rusty-red hand touches hers gently. “Eddie – I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

“Skip. I heard you. We’re good, okay? Can you answer a couple questions for me?”

“Four men,” Skip says, correctly guessing her first few. “Didn’t hear any names. They were all dressed up. Dark suits, two blond guys, two with dark hair.  Good shoes. I saw the shoes real close up.”

He’s trying for wry, but Eddie jumps on this, grabbing her notebook. “Shoes. Good. Talk to me about shoes. Color?”

“Black leather dress shoes. Plain. One pair really pointy. All of them but one. Big blond guy. He had brown, dark brown, with like a curly bit over the lace holes…I can’t really…”

“You mean like a scalloped strip on the uppers, over the laces?”

“Yeah.”

“Was the strip the same kind of leather as the rest?”

“Lighter than the rest. Gold. Gold holes. Laces.”

“Gold grommets. Good. Keep going. These brown shoes, were they scuffed at the toes?”

“Yeah. Yeah! They were. Not new. I could see stitches. Weird, like yellow and brown twisted.”

Skip’s eyes go still and his chest bucks instead of rising. The EMT is on him in a tenth of a second, applying a mask and adjusting his jaw. There’s a new trickle of blood at the corner of his mouth, and Eddie’s heart sinks. Sometimes she hates being right.

And shit, what if her poking Skip’s cracked ribs ruptured something critical…but it couldn’t, could it? She hadn’t felt anything give, hadn’t prodded hard enough to feel more than the outline of a rib, which had certainly not budged, even if it made him yelp.

She knows she could never justify that poke to anyone might question her about it. But she also knows that it released them both, in a weird and unsettling way. He was begging her to make them evens, lying there on the floor as immobile and exposed as she’d been with that bastard Campbell pinning her arms behind her back. Her words and reassurances weren’t getting through. So she made sure he felt it, and he did, and then he believed her.

She swallows hard and looks at her notes. She’s pretty sure Skip’s describing hand-tailored shoes, fairly well-worn. That could prove useful.

“Central to Twelve-D. Information,” she hears.

“Copy, Central,” she hears Jamie’s voice come though on her shoulder.

“Copy, Central,” she echoes.

“Twelve-D, Unit Twelve-Echo reports picking up two male suspects one block from your scene. Both male, twenty-five to thirty-five, both dark, business type suits, blood on shirts. Taking them home to process.”

“Copy. Thanks to Twelve-Echo,” Jamie replied. “Partner, you good?”

“Ten-four. Almost at St. Victor’s. Vic reporting four attackers, so please keep looking. Partial description: both blonde males, twenty-five to thirty-five, also in dark business type suits. One with black shoes. One with…”

She drops her finger from the radio as her brain races. _Yes._ She knows the sort of man who would look forward to groping women in public, lead an attack on an intervenor, and then leave the others to pick up the pieces.

The same sort of man who would claim he wasn’t even at the Psi Beta Tau house on the night in question, and had no idea what sort of unsavory activities were going on in his absence. And indeed, Campbell, the vice-president of the chapter, had released her and disappeared before Eddie had seen him clearly enough to identify him.

She only knew who he was because he had sent a note to her residence the next day, covering his cowardly ass, and triggering her suspicion. Campbell, in his note, wrote that he had “heard some of his brothers had come home very drunk after a kegger the night before, and were rude to a few of their guests, and he hoped she would take up his personal invitation to a catered dinner party at the house the next week.” The boy she’d been with, just a shocked pledge in the frat house himself, had not been able to deny that Campbell was the same person who led the “panty raid” as they called it.

Oh, yes. She knew they type. They ran from the light like roaches, but couldn’t resist sticking around to watch.

“Twelve-D, losing you. Come in.”

“Central!” Eddie cries. “He’ll be nearby. He’ll be close enough to watch the scene. Maybe hiding between buildings. Keep looking for one well-dressed blond male, white, twenty-five to thirty-five, drunk and possibly bloodied, with brown tailored shoes, scalloped uppers, gold grommets. They’ll be easy to spot. The kind of shoes people wear to be noticed. Maybe blood on them.” She thinks fast. “Or same description, in socks or bare feet. He may have ditched them. Vic has described the shoes. Find them. If you don’t find him tonight, he’ll be back tomorrow night.”

“On it, Twelve-D.”

“Nice one, partner.”

“PBT ring,” Skip groans. “That’s what cut me.” She jumps to find his eyes on hers, above the oxygen mask. She hadn’t noticed him coming round.

“Central! Twelve-D again. Suspect has a fraternity ring on him. He might take it off but he won’t ditch it. Psi Beta Tau, gold ring, red stone,” she relays, staring at him. “Skip. They were PBT?”

“Yeah.”

“They didn’t think you’d do anything,” she breathes, sickened. “They knew it was your bar.”

“Yeah, I think so, too,” he says clearly, and fades out again, just as they slide, sirens shrieking, into an unoccupied bay under the hospital’s covered entrance.

 

* * * * *

 

Skip doesn’t wake up as they wheel him straight into prep for X-rays. The EMT, whose name she learns is Justin, isn’t overly concerned, but thinks Skip has a long recovery ahead.

“Nothing I wasn’t expecting,” Justin says, which is some small assurance. They’re standing in between the two automatic sliding front doors, where the air jets are warm, because neither has a coat, and Eddie’s a little shaky now. “Intra-cranial pressure increasing is what likely kept him going in and out like that, from bleeding into the brain, but no other signs of concussion. Pupils looked good, coherent speech. Except for that broken nose.” Justin shakes his head, “That’s gonna hurt worse than the ribs. And something got punctured inside, but a slow leaker. Hopefully not an organ. Just have to wait and see.”

“Thanks,” Eddie says, getting it all in her notebook along with Justin’s cell number, in case she needs to corroborate Skip’s information later on.

“Friend of yours?” Justin asks kindly. “Not gonna bust you or anything. Lord knows I’d want a familiar face to ride with if I had to.”

“College…” Eddie says vaguely. Justin nods and then gestures with his thumb to his ambulance.

“Gotta run. Call if you need,” he says.

She leans against the wall and takes out her phone to text Jamie: _At St Vic’s. Skip heading for OR soon. PBT frat connection b/w vic and sus but Skip couldn’t ID. You?_

It takes him a couple of minutes to respond, which means he’s probably driving. Then: _Nearly there. Det squad has PBT info. Got your kit here. Kara’s with me to bag your clothes and swab hands etc. Bringing meatball sub and mocha._

She smiles weakly, recognizing she’s running on fumes after the adrenaline rush. She hadn’t felt like crying before, between bouts of anger and bitterness, but that nearly does it.

To steady herself, she pushes her back up against the wall, literally, and takes stock of what she knows and where she’s at. It’s been one hell of a week. Her knee’s still sore from the little punk knocking her down at the beginning of it all.

She’d been far, far too pissed off earlier to admit that Jamie was right to prevent her spinning an act of vengeance out of a minor altercation. He only screwed up by going to Erin first with the story the assault, without telling her he even knew. That was a breach of privacy that still stings, but she gets that she was running headlong into deep water and shutting him out every single time he tried to talk. Of course he was well within bounds, in terms of protocol. They’d never intervene like that if they weren’t convinced it was in the other’s best interest. This is something they can work through.

Meanwhile, they’re looking for a PBT who still wears his ring. Probably from the same year, or a few up or down, as Skip, if he knew enough to look up him up ten years after graduation. So his name will be on a list, somewhere. Not Campbell, though, not the same sociopathic bastard who giggled in her ear while dragging her down the hallway as she struggled. Skip would have known him. And after tonight, Eddie knew, she could trust that Skip would have named him. There were more Campbells out there. Trained by and covered up for by each other.

Once she’s turned in her clothing and written up her notes, she can step aside from the whole case if she wants to. In fact, her job is to let the Detectives run the case from here. And it’ll feel okay. She hopes Skip recovers, and that’s an end of it. He’s no longer a barb under her skin, and she’s no longer a troubling stain on his memory. They’re even. Washed clean of each other. She may never encounter Campbell again, but she doesn’t dread it in the least anymore. She knows she’s ready to take him on, and that she is surrounded by a rock-solid firmament of law and support.

When she thought back on her late college years, it was usually with bitter resentment at what she’d had taken from her, through no fault of her own. Her sense of safety around her friends, and on campus. Her emerging sexual confidence as a young woman. Then, only a year later, the family crash, sweeping away not only the economic security she’d taken for granted, but her belief that her father’s hard work and character were the rational and moral source of her family’s luck and fortune. Replaced with nights of nausea at the thought that some muckraking reporter might put her father’s name together with the name of that dark-haired college girl whose picture was splashed across Facebook the year before, naked, her arms twisted behind her back, confused and screaming for help.

It was a very real but baseless fear. The administrative sanctions placed upon all of the frats by the school had not won any adulation or attention for herself or the other girls who had come forward. For one thing, the proceedings were supposed to be anonymous, and like the other girls, she’d signed a non-disclosure agreement, assuming that she was legally compelled to. So the people on campus who would have gladly supported her either knew nothing, or were restrained from talking to her outside of the official activities of Student Counselling Services and the Office of Non-Academic Discipline. And the people who knew wanted nothing to do with her, or to drive her off campus.

They’d nearly succeeded. Her father, before his empire toppled, offered to send her to any school she wanted, for her senior year. It was her mother who convinced her to stay. Mira chose that moment to take her aside and quietly explain the use of rape and sexual threats as a weapon of terror, in her war-torn old home-town of Prijedor. She explained the power of looking people in the eyes until they dropped theirs, and reminded Eddie that because she spoke the truth, other girls would be spared, and the boys would be monitored.

“I could not stay in my town, or even my country,” Mira told her, cradling her as if she was still a little girl, during a few days’ rest at home. “My own people were the occupying force, committing the most awful atrocities. I could not look any of my old friends in the eye. I dropped my eyes first. And if I said anything against the Serb uprising, I would have been killed. I had to run. But you, my girl,” she kissed Eddie’s forehead, “ _You spoke_.”

Somehow, she stayed, and somehow, not only finished but scored higher in her marks than ever, probably out of loneliness and obstinacy combined. She’d always found solace in work.

A year later, seeing the faces of the old friends that her father had taken everything from, in the name of providing the American Dream for his family, Eddie thought she had an inkling of what her mother had felt, utterly betrayed by those she loved best, and held tacitly responsible for them. And she ran.

“Hey, Eddie. There you are.”

She nearly leaps sideways. “Kara! Sorry.”

“Jesus, girl. Look at you. C’mon, I got us a ladies’ room we can use to do all the chain-of-evidence-y shit and then you can shower off.”

Kara holds up Eddie’s tactical bag, like a small waterproof duffel, with her clean gear and toiletries. Over her arm she has Eddie’s warm winter uniform jacket.

“Let’s do this,” Eddie says, braced up by Kara’s matter-of-fact bearing. “Then food.”

“Damn straight.” Kara replies, as they head into the hospital lobby and around a corner.

“Where’s Reagan?”

“Off buying flowers to say he’s sorry.”

“The hell? He doesn’t need to – aw, shut up, Walsh.”

“Gotcha. He’s parking the damn car. He’ll be in soon. He said something about you being pissed with him.”

“Not anymore.” Eddie says.

“So,” Kara eyes her, interestedly, “He _has_ bought you flowers to say sorry before?”

“ _Pizza_ ,” Eddie corrects her. “And meatball subs.”

“Really. And yet I notice you haven’t married him.”

“Um – ” Eddie looks back quickly. “Funny you should mention that, actually. So guess what.”

“No. NO. You guys did not finally – ”

“Gotcha,” says Eddie.

It’s ridiculous bullshit, and they both know it. Kara’s faith in her ability to keep up and keep laughing is a tonic. In the small bathroom next to the nurses’ nap room, they get through the processes of swabbing, scraping, bagging, tagging and taping as quickly as they can, and then Eddie finally gets to shower off the accumulated blood, sweat and unshed tears of the day. Kara, folding Eddie’s dirty uniform neatly into the bag, keeps up a running commentary of her own shift, and pretends not to hear any sniffling.

 

* * * * *

 

Eddie, Kara and Jamie share their takeout dinner in companionable quiet, in the cruiser. It’s less comfortable than the hospital cafeteria, but it’s private and they don’t get stared at for being in uniform. After eating, the rush of the shift long faded, Eddie feels a wash of sleepiness. She’d like to say that she knows herself well enough to be aware that she’s too tired and mentally zapped to drive, but in reality, it’s that she wouldn’t endanger her car. Silver Belle is precious for many reasons.

Jamie, being Jamie, doesn’t need her to say any of this. Once they’re back at the house, he lounges against the wall outside the ladies’ change room, as he so often does, waiting for to appear, and then sort of herds her towards his car. He opens the passenger door for her and she doesn’t even roll her eyes at him. In fact, she watches her hand close over his, on the rim of the door, and squeeze gently.

They don’t speak or make any eye contact. He closes the door gently and she hears him clear his throat as he gets in his side.

She’s so used to sitting in the shotgun seat beside him that it’s like a second home by now. She closes her eyes, snuggling deeper into the warmth of her jacket and the heat from the A/C, and it feels a little like he’s carrying her home.

He says her name softly when they’re near to her apartment. He has to say it twice, and she realizes that he doesn’t want to startle her by shaking her shoulder as he normally would. A little more alert after her doze, she turns and gives him a lopsided little grin.

“I’m still me, Reagan. We’re still us.”

“What’s that mean?”

“I mean, don’t treat me any differently because you know what you know. I’m not made of glass.”

They’ve pulled up outside her building. He shuts off the engine, and turns to her. “I’m just trying to – it’s hard to know what to do, Eddie. All this stuff coming out just now, all these past abuse stories and more of it happening every day – it makes me want to look back, you know, to figure out if anything I said or did ever went over the line. With any of my girlfriends, or any of my friends I might’ve made feel uncomfortable, if I didn’t know they were dealing with past shit. I mean, it’s becoming pretty clear that there’s probably very few women I know who haven’t either been targeted or sexually picked on just for being women. You've had way too much of that, and I'm pretty sure I've only heard the major stuff, not even the everyday. I don't want to add a single grain of sand to that pile.”

That gives her pause for thought. “I get that. I do. You’re about the least likely person I know to have any reason to be concerned about consent or respect for the people around you. I mean, we’ve all done our share of stupid things, but consideration is like second nature to you.”

He gives her a look of such genuinely deep affection that it sends a thrilling rush through her guts. “That’s…that means a lot. I wish that was the baseline for compliments to men. Especially from other men.”

She lets out a laugh. “Damn, wouldn’t that be a revolution?”

“It would.” He’s clearly pondering something. “I think maybe I should check in with Jack and Sean more often. I know Danny’s doing a great job with them, and Linda was always a big one for respect. But I know there’s more going on in their lives than they tell their dad.”

“You know when I call you Eagle Scout I wouldn’t want you any other way, right?” she responds, before she can pull the words back. _Oops_ , she thinks. She rambles ahead before he can reply. “Jamie, I’m not mad, you know. Anyone else, I might still be, but lucky for you, I do know you were trying to help. So here’s the thing: if anything like that ever, _ever_ happens again, can you try one more time to get my attention with like a big red flag or something, before taking my own stories to someone else?”

“I promise I will. I’m really sorry about that. I think I was pretty shocked, to be honest, and I was worried what you were getting into. And I… ”

“You…what?”

“Maybe denial? No, that’s not it. I didn’t want to think of you as someone who’d gone through something like that. Not because it changed my sense of you. I couldn’t match my sense of you with someone going through that.”

“Oh, come on,” she teases him, almost lazily. He makes it so easy sometimes. “You were just suddenly confronted with this image of me as a twenty-two year old college girl in bed with a frat boy and it freaked you out a little. No wonder you didn’t want to ask me directly about it.”

He doesn’t blush or fluster, which should have served as a warning. He simply holds her eyes and says, “It’s already hard enough not to think of you first as an attractive, sexual being, Eddie.”

She has to take a moment and inhale. She can’t imagine the look on her face right now.

_Why can’t we just why the hell can’t we just…_

“Yeah,” she manages, at last. “Yeah, I know. It’s not getting any easier, is it?”

“No. But here we are.”

“It’s for our own good. And the job.”

“Yup.”

_It’s just the emotions of the day and loving him so much as a friend and this would be a really bad time and why can’t we just…_

They stare at one another for a very dangerous few seconds. His eyes flicker downward in a way she remembers, for a bare instant.

“I better go,” she says, softly.

“Get outta here. I’ll see you tomorrow. You want a pickup?”

“Nah, I’ll commute. No big.”

“Call me if you change your mind.”

“Yup. G’night.”


	2. Chapter 2

It’s Sunday. The family takes the news of his upcoming absences from Church and dinner better than he expects.

“Been a while since you moonlighted anywhere,” his father notes.

“Nice bit of overtime,” Danny nods approvingly, from across the table. “That’s gotta help with payments on the new _‘staaang_ , anyway, huh?”

“Had to do something with my paycheque, now my Harvard loans are paid off.” Jamie answers both of them at once, with an unapologetic grin. If he had to give up on fixing up Joe’s ’71 Malibu after its final demise, the brand new glossy-black Saleen makes a damn decent replacement. It’s a sleek, powerful piece of machine, perfectly responsive, without looking like blatant overcompensation or swagger.

It’s a way of looking forward, too. Identifying with who he feels like now, who he wants to keep growing into, rather than holding onto the past, even out of love and loyalty.

“Eleven years to pay off student loans isn’t half bad, especially for law,” Erin says. “I was paying mine off for nearly twenty. But then marriage, not-marriage and a kid in private school will do that, on the public dime.” She pulls a face at her daughter, who screws up her nose and pretends to glare.

“Well, there’s that, and whatever else I could say about Wall Street, two years working there was a great way to pay down a big chunk of change right away.” Jamie admits.

“Plus not having a girlfriend in how long?” Jack puts in. “Ow! What?” he demands as Danny administers a fatherly cuff to the back of his head.

“I get to say that. You don’t get to say that.” Danny says, as Jamie shakes his head wearily.

“Is this a continuing gig?” his father asks, cutting in between his sons.

“Nah, just the two festivals, three weeks apart, so I’ll still be here for dinner in between.”

“Well, good,” says his father, handing over the basket of hot rolls, “We’ll miss you. But you could do with a change of scenery, and I’m sure Officer Janko could too. You’ve been putting in solid work.”

Erin drops her eyes briefly. Jamie knows Eddie called her up to clear the air and they’ve got a drinks date soon, but he thinks Erin still feels bad she couldn’t do more.

“Could I come?” asks Nicky. “I like music festivals. I’ve been putting in solid work, too.”

Jamie considers this. “You know what, you might enjoy the one next weekend. It’s mostly East Coast folkies and rockers, trying to make industry connections and a bigger New York audience base. Could see some cool new stuff. I’ll send you the website and you can check it out. It’s a long way from home, but at least it’s indoors.”

“You should go, if you can take the time from schoolwork,” says Erin. “You’re right, you’ve been working really hard. I don’t mind you taking the car for a one-day trip, if you find a friend or two. Safety in numbers, and to keep you awake on the road.”

“Oh, can Sean and I come?” Jack asks, perking up. “I am so fried with school right now.”

“It’s only November,” Sean says. “How bad can Grade Twelve be?”

“He wants to take Tasha somewhere cool,” Nicky taunts him, and sits back to watch Jack freak out and most of the table demand to know what’s up with Tasha. The challenge of dating private school classmates is that most of the families have known each other since the children were small. Tasha’s name has been mentioned a couple of times recently in the context of writing skits for French class. Nicky’s bombshell was well-timed if importunate.

Jack, flushed and flustered, denies everything. “I mean, I don’t even know if she’s into that kind of thing,” he protests. “Not that I’d ask her.”

Jamie, who has always seen Jack as the nephew most like him, is deeply sympathetic.

“Tasha, no Tasha, whatever, all you kids go and keep an eye on your Uncle Jamie and _Officer_ Janko.” Danny grins, waving a forkful of pot roast descriptively. Jamie blinks and shrugs as if he can’t imagine what Danny’s talking about.

“It’s just site-sec,” he says mildly, “We’ll be working. The second one’s private, I can tell you that. Can’t tell you much else, though, except it’s some annual get-together and jam session for jazz musicians from all over the world.”

“Oh, I’m familiar with that one,” Frank says. “That’s quite an event. Some great recordings have come out of that. And Officer Janko’s father’s friend is involved?”

“I guess so. I don’t know if ‘friend’ is the right word. Old business associate, I think. He’s into property management now. Couple of his nieces and their friends are into the music scene, and it sounds like he’s one of their festival sponsors.”

“It’s unbelievable,” Erin says. “This whole thing. I knew she had talents, but my Lord – to go confront a face from her past like that, and to bring him around to hiring a young couple living here illegally – to live-in rent-free? You two saved that family, you know. Child Protective Services would not have looked kindly on an illegal baby in a shelter, even one delivered by a cop.”

Jamie flushes and ducks his head under the family’s murmured approbation. The first time had been plenty.

“And Officer Janko even found a way of getting an old Ponzi scheme dude to do some good,” Nicky sighs. Her fan crush on Eddie continues unabated.

“So when you say she used guilt,” Danny gestures again with his empty fork, “Just how much guilt we talking here? I mean, it sounds like she has actual dirt on the dude. You sure this ain’t gonna come back and bite you both on the…bum?” he finishes, trying to evade a pointed look from his father and epic eye-rolls from his sons.

“He cashed out of the business and tried to make good with some of his investors before her father got caught. There was no paper trail to prosecute him for, but she knew he’d been carrying it around ever since. She’d tell me if there was anything I needed to know.”

“Sure, as long as _she_ knew,” Danny points out. “She had a nasty shock before, don’t forget.”

“Yeah, well, this isn’t that, Danny. Can we just – ”

“Please,” agrees Henry, who had been taking in the conversation along with his pot roast in hungry silence. “I’ve seen more than any of you here, and I gotta say, this Janko fellow wouldn’t have gotten more than a slap on the wrist and a stern suggestion to leave town, back when I was on patrol. If he and his friends are trying to do some good for people with the time they have left, I say let ‘em. Jamie, you and your charming partner might have gotten more personally involved in this case than some of here might be comfortable with, but I hope we can agree it sounds like a great opportunity for those young people. And you can bet they’ll always remember how the police treated them.”

“Hear, hear,” says Frank.

* * * * *

After dinner, with everyone else sitting over bourbon or board games, Jamie finds Jack thumping cutlery into the dishwasher racks in a fair display of a snit. He quietly slips into the kitchen, closing the door.

“Hey,” he says, “Listen, this family does not let up once there’s blood in the water. They see wanting privacy as suspicious. Plus, they can’t resist a good story. But that wasn’t kind of Nicky, and Erin just told her so. You want me to get everyone off your back, you let me know. It’s tough enough just dealing with being seventeen.”

“It’s not that bad,” Jack sighs, turning around. “I mean, being seventeen isn’t that bad, at least for me. But yeah, this family…and with Sean and Dad going through whatever they’re going through, I’ve just been trying to get along and keep my head down.”

“Yeah. You’re good at that. I was, too.” Jamie approaches the kitchen counter, rolling up his sleeves. “Sometimes it works. As long as you got some way of getting out of your head again. Things stick around in there and eat at you, you know?”

“Yeah.” They work together in coordinated silence, Jamie rinsing serving dishes and Jack stacking them in neat rows in the dishwasher. “You’re not gonna ask? About Tasha?”

“It’s none of my business. But it’d be good to see you going out with your pals and looking happy again. Looked like you had a rough time after Chelsea, last year.”

“You knew about Chelsea?”

“Call it a pretty big hunch. I think I was the only one to figure it out, though. Just the way you said something, once, reminded me of me trying to keep a girl thing secret from Danny and Erin. You did well, if you were trying to keep it hushed up. ”

“That’s part of why she broke up with me,” Jack confesses. “She thought I was embarrassed to be with her or something, ‘cause I wouldn’t tell anyone in the family or introduce her to anyone. But, I mean – ” his voice wobbles a little, and Jamie’s heart absolutely goes out to him, “I think Mom knew. She drove Chelsea home from a couple of movie nights with our friends. We weren’t that serious, and if Dad or Grandpa knew, they’d be sitting us down for big talks and trying to get into our heads and get us to think about what happens after high school, and – we just wanted to have fun, you know? Just hang out and not have to be these perfect kids all the time. Talk about stupid stuff and interesting stuff, and, I mean…”

“Fool around a bit.”

“I mean…” Jack repeats, blushing furiously. “We never – ”

Jamie shrugs. “You guys have to grow up sometime. After Nicky decided that her first major boyfriend was gonna be a cop, I’m afraid the entire family went into alarm mode about you guys dating anyone. Me as well. Eddie had to shake me out of that,” he admits.

Jack thinks about this and draws a blank. “How’d you mean?”

“She reminded me that we’ve always taken you guys for granted as good kids we don’t need to worry about. But that doesn’t mean you’re not basically nearly grownups. Can’t expect you to walk out the door, go to college and suddenly know how to deal with everything you’ve been warned off. My point is, we know you were raised right, but it’s way different out in the world, with men constantly supposed to act one way and women another, and so much of it’s beyond harmful. It’s hard to go against the flow. So yeah, we worry. But we also have to trust you to fall back on what you know, and remember _why_ things like respect and making sure everyone’s consenting and on the same page should be a no-brainer. If you haven’t got that, you don’t go a step further.”

“I, uh, I know, Uncle Jamie.”

“I know you know. Part of this is coming from the job, and some of the stuff I deal with, not you. And whoever you end up going out with is going to be really glad that you’re just a considerate guy by nature.”

“Hey, Uncle Jamie?” Jack eyes him sidelong. “That stupid thing I said at dinner. I’m sorry. It really was just supposed to be a joke. It came out kinda wrong.”

“I know. I thought it was pretty funny, actually.”

“You know how you said it was none of your business but you wanted me to be happy?”

“Uh huh.” He looks curiously at Jack, who is trying to communicate something at him very hard. Something best left unverbalized, yes. _Trust_. Trust me? Trust him. “ _Oh._ Oh, I, uh…yeah. I don’t know, Jack. We’re a really great team together.”

“You couldn’t work together anymore.”

“Yeah.”

“Is that the only reason why you guys haven’t, you know, tried dating or anything?”

Jamie’s touched that Jack feels he can ask him outright, and know that they’ll keep each other’s confidences. He’s always felt more like an older brother than an uncle to Danny’s boys, especially Jack. Funny to think that Jack’s an oldest child, and Jamie himself is a youngest child. Maybe that’s why they’ve just been waiting till recently to relate more as brothers.

“Sounds like we’re just chicken, or trying to get the best of both worlds, doesn’t it, when you put it like that?”

“No, I think I get it. It’s bigger than that. Like you make each other better.”

“Sorta, yeah. That’s a good place to start. You pick up on a lot.”

“Well,” says Jack, “I liked seeing you happy, too. Like you were with Sydney, or it looked like, anyway. I still remember that, even if it was a long time ago.”

“Me, too, kid.” They share a lopsided Reagan grin. “You think there’s anyone listening outside?”

“There better not be.” Jack looks startled, and takes two large strides to the door, which he flings open. Outside, there is only the sound of the family a couple of rooms away, chatting, provoking, topping each other’s stories, as they always do.

_This family,_ Jamie thinks, with that familiar mix of exasperation, deep affection and stifling closeness _._ It occurs to him to wonder if Dad and Grandpa would ever get curious enough to bug their own kitchen, but discards the idea. They’d be just as liable to get stung as anyone.

_This family…_ he thinks again, shaking his head. They go through these cyclical suffocating patches, especially for the token generational introverts like Jack and himself. He’s glad to be getting a little distance. Spending it with Eddie, and maybe Nicky and the boys, is an extra bonus.


	3. Chapter 3

“It’s gonna be a crazy long day tomorrow…and two days in a row,” he groans. They’re walking into the one-two after shift, shoulder to shoulder, hands in the pockets of their winter duty jackets. Normally on a Friday night, they’d be getting changed and heading back out for dinner and drinks, but tonight is an early night for both of them.

“It’s only the Hamptons. Two hours there and back against traffic, max.” Eddie says.

“Oh, so an hour and a half, tops, with you driving.”

“Ha! With me driving _my Porsche_.” She shivers a little in anticipation.

 _That’s the real problem_ , he thinks. He’s not terribly concerned with giving up their weekends to two full shifts with long commutes at either end. But Eddie in her sweet little silver Boxter, grinning behind her Ray-Bans, is lethal. She may not be an amateur gearhead like him, per se, but she knows sports cars, and she appreciates a beautiful, well-maintained piece of engineering just as much as he does. Especially being in control of one.

He remembers the last time they took a drive out of the city in his new Mustang, last summer, just to see how she handled out on the open road, and how good it all was. Eddie beside him, excited and full of backchat and easy laughter. Belting along with the 80’s tunes she’d brought along, with enough fervour that they could both pretend he wasn’t singing along under his breath. He’d let her take the wheel for a while coming home, and she’d handled the sensitive controls like she was gentling an actual wild horse. It had been…thrilling, actually. Like some careless dream of a lazy summer that he never got to have the first time round, glued to his books as he was.

So naturally, that day led to another episode in his back catalog of never-in-a-million-years fantasies involving her. Specifically, the one where they’re driving somewhere in her car, or his, doesn’t matter which, doesn’t matter where, going fast. She’s got one confident hand easy on the leather-clad steering wheel, and the other is slowly and steadily working him to a mindbending finish through his unzipped jeans. She’s never in uniform, though, and it’s never their police cruiser. There are some places he’s too strongly programmed to transgress, which, given their thousands of shared hours on tour, is just as well.

It’s probably a pretty tame and common fantasy for the average car guy, but he wonders what she’d think if she knew where his brain went now and then, regarding her in particular. He’s doing his best to steer his mind far away from such images, especially recently. Not with the knowledge of how Eddie’s own sexuality was weaponized against her, and the impact it had on her. Not with both of them having admitted unwise things about that chemistry that’s never died down between them.

She picks up on his hesitation and leans towards him. “You can drive the last bit to the Hamptons from wherever we cut off the Expressway,” she promises.

“That’s a really nice piece of road.”

“Yes, it is. And you are going to keep your eyes fixed on it, Mister.”

 _Busted? Maybe._ He shoots her a look of personal affront. “As if I’d put Silver Belle in any danger. Or you. Did you swap your snow tires yet?” he asks.

She nods, and suddenly gets that look on her face. Her eyes widen and she grabs his arm.

“What?” he asks, with a sense of foreboding.

“Jamie. Oh, my God. Let’s head out there tonight. Night drive, good tunes, grab a room. We’ll feel so much better tomorrow if we don’t have to get up at five a.m. and drive all that way.”

He turns the idea over in his head for a moment, and God help him, but he really likes it. She can see it in his face and grins happily.

“Go get changed! I’ll see what’s available out there. It’s not summer, so…”

She spins on her heel and departs. He watches her for a moment, open-mouthed, and heads to the men’s locker room. He’s halfway out of his gear before it hits him that Eddie said, “grab a room”, singular.

He’s not entirely sure what exactly he wants to do about that, or rather, what God or Fate or Eddie is telling him to do about that. By the time they meet up in the corridor again, in their usual jeans, boots and leather jackets, she’s bouncing on the balls of her feet, excited and impatient.

“Jamie!” she hisses, beckoning, “C’mere. You won’t believe it.”

“Believe what?” he follows her into a supply closet lined with gray metal bracket shelves to the ceiling, and leans against a row of banker’s boxes, arms crossed. Eddie is glowing at him, talking with her gloved hands, her blue gauzy scarf swinging in counterpoint.

“There’s this little inn in Montauk,” she says rapidly, and very low. It would not do for the rest of the house to hear this. “It’s the off-season, so I thought I’d take a chance, and guess what, they’ve got two rooms for tonight and tomorrow. Plus, when I asked about government rates and explained we were working, they offered us both nights for the price of one. They never fill up in winter, the guy said. Which means, if we like it, I bet we could stay there again for the jazz festival weekend, too.”

“No way.”

“Way.”

He’s stunned by how everything has fallen into place.  He grabs a small box of ammo off the shelf, and weighs it in his hand, thinking over Eddie’s plan. “What the hell,” he says. “Okay. I got everything ready to go at home, though, so I just need to make a stop there.”

“I got my gear bagged up already in my locker,” she grins. “You know what I’m like in the mornings. So you leave your car in the compound here and I’ll run you home. Then we’ll go grab takeout and hit the highway.”

They nearly walk into Renzulli, who eyes the pair of them as if he really doesn’t want to know why they’re so bright-eyed coming out of the supply closet after a full shift.

“Hey, Tony,” Jamie says, holding up the box of ammo he’d forgotten he was holding. “Just checking over our gear. We’re moonlighting security tomorrow. G’night.”

“Remember to sign for those.” Renzulli says. Then he turns, “Hey, wait.”

“Yeah?”

“You’re doing site-sec for that festival out on Long Island, yeah?”

“Yep.”

“Right, right. Listen, you guys are gonna get asked to take your photographs all day, you know? The kids, they love putting that stuff up on their Twitter feeds.”

“Snapchat,” Eddie corrects him. “Instagram.”

“Okay. Anyway, be careful with that. You’ve both done good undercover work, and we want to be able to keep using you while we can. You understand?”

“Ten-four,” Jamie says. “There’s not much we can do if we’re just standing around on duty, but yeah, we’ll try to fend off the selfie crowd.”

“Do your best,” Tony says, “Have fun. I won’t hear you on the radio out there, but call my cell if you need. Call me on your break, if you can, to check in.”

“Will do. ‘Night, Sarge,” says Eddie.

“’Night, you two.”

“ _’Night, Sarge_ ,” Jamie mimics, sing-songing in Eddie’s ear, as Tony heads off down the corridor. She smacks his side, hard, forgetting he’s not wearing his soft armor anymore, and stifles a giggle as he winces and mock-staggers into the wall. She pretends to be apologetic and concerned, patting him as if to check him over, and Jamie wonders how this weekend could possibly end without them getting into trouble.

 

* * * * *

 

Eddie is usually pretty good at keeping her cool, but she gives it up within a few steps of the precinct doors.

“I don’t remember the last time I went on a proper night drive!” she exults. “And it’s such a clear night, and it won’t be crowded. There’s a meteor shower tonight, did you know?”

“It’s the Leonids,” he confirms, because of course he knows that.

 _Falling stars and Jamie_ , she sighs to herself, and mentally rolls her eyes.

It’s true, though, that tonight is bringing back all sorts of rushes of memories of the first few summers she and Silver Belle traversed everywhere within a day of Manhattan, alone or with a boyfriend or a pile of girlfriends, alive and curious in a vast universe of possibility. Encountering the world full-on. Before the thing at the PBT house, and her dad’s house of cards crumbling a year later. At least being dragged back through those memories has also brought back the memories of how she felt about herself before.

Time may not heal everything, but if you’re lucky and work at it, the passage of time and the overlay of powerful new memories can mellow bullshit into good compost, she thinks.

And impromptu road trips with best friends take her right back to that self she misses.

For all the miles they log on shift, she and Jamie haven’t taken a long drive for the hell of it since summer, in Jamie’s new Mustang. It took her weeks to stop playing that lazy summer afternoon over in her mind. That day, like tonight, feels intimate and slightly clandestine. They could pull straight faces and speak candidly about wanting to arrive on shift well-rested, if anyone happened to find out, but they’d be just as happy if nobody ever did.

“What music you bringing?” Jamie asks. He’s a little giddy himself. The glint in his eye is causing some backflips in her stomach that she’s in no mood to shut down in a hurry tonight, as she usually does.

“Got Sirius hooked up to ‘80’s hits, classic jazz, psychedelic 70’s and R&B,” she rattles off. “Or whatever else you feel like.”

“No, that’ll do. Dinner?”

“Eh, anything, as long as we don’t eat – ”

“In the car. I know.” he says agreeably. He has similar rules for his car, she knows, although he does allow coffee-drinking out of the two complimentary stainless-steel mugs that came with it, which fit perfectly in the console without sliding around.

Sports car people. They get each other. They share a look of complete understanding as they reach Silver Belle, and walk around to either door.

 

* * * * *

 

For two people who spend upwards of eight hours in a car together on an average workday, it’s remarkable how much talking they find they need to do off-duty. And in the dark, in the private bubble of her car, conversation drifts easily with every passing mile from Jamie’s place in Brooklyn Heights towards Long Island.

“He’s going to be placed in a residence with five other older guys,” Eddie says, “For at least a year, but realistically, there’s a chance it could be much longer. He’s sixty-seven. He’s not going to be looking for work or retraining. He’s mostly got to get used to living on the outside again. I guess in some ways he’s ahead of the game – he was always pretty up on technology and culture trends, just the nature of being a salesman, so he won’t have missed all that much.”

“He knows your mom’s honestly, truly out of the picture?” Jamie asks softly. He knows her father had held onto the belief, and then a lingering hope, that he and her mother would be back together again, for years.

Eddie was the one who had to take the brunt of his shock and denial when Mira mailed the divorce papers to him at Fort Dix. He hadn’t signed them for six months, until Eddie threatened to never visit him again unless he let her mother go. She’d taken the signed papers away with her that day and not returned anyway, for three years, and she’d hated herself for it as much as she had desperately needed to buy some breathing space for her mother and herself.

She hadn’t gone back, even after writing to her father to tell him of Mira’s engagement and subsequent marriage to her now-stepdad Bradley. Not even after her father had clearly, painfully explained that he understood, not until Jamie drove her there himself and waited outside the gates for her. Jamie had seen through her jittery anger and attitude and just absorbed it all until she ran out of reasons to run away, and made her feet point in the right direction, despite wanting nothing more than to run away.

“He knows. What worries me the most is him being alone. He can’t stand being alone. He went from a big family, to marrying Mom, then trying to surround us with a constant social scene – then to prison, where he’s never left alone. At least in the halfway house he’ll have people, but after that? I don’t know. He can’t stay with me.”

“Has he suggested it?”

“Once. I think he was just spinning a fantasy. He seemed to think he was going to make a new fortune, and be able to buy a place where I could go and live with him. For all I know he was on sedatives at the time. He seemed to think I was still coming home from school on breaks.”

“It sounds to me like you need to decide what your limits are with him, and stick to it,” Jamie says seriously. “Don’t wait until you’re over your head to draw your lines in the sand or ask for help. But I mean, he’s a gregarious guy, and smart, and he’s used to working from dawn to dusk. He might find something good to do to keep him occupied. I bet there’s plenty of places that could use someone with his skills. As a volunteer, or even a real job.”

“I did think of suggesting it, but he could never use his financial skills as an employee, or even to volunteer. He’d never pass a crim check to even be a society treasurer or anything.”

“He gets people to trust him. I gotta say, I warmed up to the guy pretty quick, even knowing everything I did. And not just because he’s your dad. If he can find a way to use that, he might do a lot of good for people.”

“I hope so,” she says. “I can only hope so.”

“You’re not alone, either. Don’t forget that part.”

She feels a warm tingle rush up her arm as Jamie’s hand slides over hers, resting on the manual gear knob as she pulls up to a red light. He strokes his thumb briefly over her wrist, and withdraws.

“Hey,” he says suddenly, “I think I saw one. A meteor. Let’s pull over for a bit once we’re clear of the city lights.”

“If it weren’t the middle of November, I’d put the top down,” she says.

“Next summer.”

“Next summer,” she agrees. “Where’ll we go?”

“Upstate?” he muses, as though they plan driving dates all the time. “Probably not Long Island. Too crowded. My family’s found some good fishing spots in those little lakes up the Hudson that tourists never seem to find.”

“Fishing?” she eyes him dubiously as the light changes and she eases forwards. “Do I seem like a fishing person to you?”

“Have you ever?”

“Well, no,” she admits.

“You’re missing out,” he tells her. “Believe me, the fish are a relatively minor aspect of the thing.”

“That’s good, because there won’t be any fish travelling home from any lakes in _this_ car.”

 _Okay, it’s worked_ , she thinks, throwing him a look. He’s given her space to air out the thoughts she needed to, and then tugged her back from the brink of wallowing. It’s something they take turns doing for each other.

He flashes a grin at her, the one that says he’s just happy to be there with her. It makes her glowy.

“About that music?” she suggests.

“Classic jazz, you said?”

“That’ll do.” She touches a couple of buttons on the stereo panel, and Sarah Vaughan’s “Detour Ahead” comes though as clear and silvery as the night itself.

It’s been a long time since they listened to jazz together. Almost exactly a year ago, in fact. Dancing at Bix’ Basement, on a crisp evening in mid-November, the night after the fiasco that was their last trip to a Long Island hotel.

The memory hits them both at the same time.

“Jamie?”

“Yeah?”

“What’re we doing?”

He takes a long, slow inhale, and she feels his eyes on her face in the dim light. “Looking for shooting stars.”

 

* * * * *

 

He can’t help but remember the last time they listened to jazz together. Barely breathing, moving together like a dream out on the dance floor. He’d thought his heart might actually burst from the feeling of Eddie in his arms, tucked close against him.

When they left the club, she’d turned to face him in the street, and kissed him lingeringly and sadly on the cheek.

“Thank you. Tonight was…Jamie – ” she shushed him with a finger on his mouth. “Don’t say anything.”

He remembers shoving his hands in his pockets helplessly, as she turned away and raised an elegant arm from under her evening wrap to hail a cab. She’d felt it, too. They both knew what would happen if they let it continue outside the club, even if he only intended to see her home. And a word from either one would reel them back in an instant.

So he’d stood like an idiot on the pavement, not even helping her into the cab or closing the door. Trying to memorize every detail of how she looked that night, how she smiled at him, how she felt against him. As her cab pulled away, she’d let herself look back through the window just once, like Orpheus, and her eyes said everything.

She was right, of course. They’d thrown open doors that should have stayed closed, out of a need to release an unbearable pressure. And what came crashing through those doors could well have cost them far more than a night in jail and the knowledge of more gossip circulating behind them.

And they’d continued after that, almost but not quite as if it hadn’t happened. Even if Eddie tried to work off her feelings on men who were totally unsuited to her and tried to hook him up, too, like a good wingman. Even if they tried to laugh off the house-talk about them and joke about cashing in on the benefits, they both knew it would always be all-in or nothing with them.

“What’re we doing?” she asks him softly, in the here-and-now, with almost the exact same catch in her voice as when she warned him not to say anything.

What _are_ they doing? Heading to a work site to get some sleep before a full day on their feet. Two friends and longtime partners enjoying a spontaneous night drive.

He’s lying to himself if he thinks that’s all it is, but he’s not going to lie to her.

“Looking for shooting stars,” he murmurs, because it’s truthful however you spin it. He only hopes they don’t come crashing to earth themselves and burn up on re-entry.

Because there will come a time, maybe tonight, maybe next week or next year, when he’s going to kiss her again. And it’s going to be for real. No more playing around. They both know it. He already knows exactly how he’s going to kiss her. He always had a thing for girls who kiss sweet and warm up slow, and however much Eddie likes being in control, he also knows she kisses _just like that_. He’ll kiss her soft and sweet and tease the hell out of her till neither of them can stand it.

And then he’s going to kiss her like they both really, really need.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Road trippin' and Shootin' Stars

* * *

Chapter theme music: [ Detour Ahead (Sarah Vaughan) ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Hyps3oh9tc)  
(Please open in new tab due to Ao3's protections against automatic tab opening in links)

* * *

 

His words fall upon the air between them, as she returns his look, and then there is silence. It’s not an answer, but she takes his point: the less they invoke the sweetest of bittersweet memories they share, the better, if they want to get through this weekend unscathed.

But is that what they want?

She listens to Sarah Vaughan’s sweet, plangent voice, and lets the comforting purr of the highway under her tires carry her thoughts away for the time being.

“Crazy week,” she mutters. “Couldn’t have picked a better time for a mini-road trip.”

“You got that right. And Erin has a new pet informant.”

“So I heard, but I never heard how that went down. Erin and I were going to have drinks this weekend, but – I think she’ll forgive me.”

* * * * * 

Being dragged back twelve years to the scene of the total body-shock and humiliation of a stupid and entirely illegal frat hazing has re-opened an old scar, long healed over, that she didn’t even realize was still septic underneath. It’s stinging and sore again, down to the nerves, and she thinks – she hopes – that from this perspective of time, she may be able to mend cleanly and properly now. She certainly hadn’t behaved very well last week, but bizarrely, the pieces have fallen into place in a way she couldn’t have envisioned back in college.

Skip’s tunnel-vision on his attackers’ shoes during the beat-down by his old frat brothers helped 12-Echo and 12-Tango locate the ringleader within minutes. They’d found him and his expensive, tailored shoes right where Eddie had told them: across the street, hiding behind a gate of reinforced chicken wire, fittingly enough, peering through the slats to watch the proceedings. He hadn’t taken off his bloodied shoes or his fraternity ring. What alerted the on-site officer was not the appearance of either, but an unexpected sound from between the buildings.

A moan.

The creep had actually whipped it out and was beating himself off when they collared him.

Not Campbell, but one just like him. K. Everett Gladstone, Class of ’04, fully pledged PBT brother. With Skip’s blood all over his nice shoes, his fraternity ring and his freshly starched shirt. An Economics major turned stockbroker, with an intensifying history of domestic and partner violence, and massive chip on his shoulder from having another Order of Protection slapped on him last month. After a few rounds at the bar, he’d decided that fingering one of his administrative assistants under her skirt in full view of her friends was just what he needed to take the edge off, and had all but ordered his buddies to try it with the others, too, if they were men at all.

Screaming drunkenly at the arresting officer to at least let him finish had earned himself further charges of resisting arrest, public intoxication and indecent exposure, in addition to the sex assault and assault causing grievous bodily harm.

“Oh, son,” Officer Pearkes told him, a grin breaking out all over her delighted black face, “You’re finished. Delius,” she called to her very large partner. “Delius, darlin’, would you please zip up Mister Gladstone here while I read him his rights? Wouldn’t want him complainin’ that he was _inappropriately touched_ during his arrest.”

Gladstone wouldn’t be wearing any of his two-thousand dollar suits for the foreseeable future. His three frat brothers, arrested on lesser charges, had been allowed to post bail. The Psi Beta Tau house where he and Skip had once lived had been sealed off and its records seized, and its chapter houses on other campuses subject to an excoriating lecture and series of regular monitoring measures by their overseeing bodies.

Skip’s ribs and nose would mend in time, and he’d come through surgery for a lacerated liver – the best organ to slice a bit off, if you had to pick one, according to his surgeon. He was all too happy to testify from his hospital bed on video. 

* * * * * 

“Erin sent Abetemarco to tape his testimony, did you know?” Jamie tells her, “And he came back and told her that Skip was talking before he even got the camera set up. The guy had never felt useful in his life before that night. He’s pretty much wagging his tail all over to help Erin out with the prosecution. He thinks he looks like a badass now.”

“Oh, brother. Is there anyone more zealous than a new recruit? Why couldn’t he have, I dunno, joined the Environmental Alliance in his freshman year or something? Saved a baby whale?”

“You – ” Jamie hesitates. “You sound like you don’t actively hate him, like you sounded before.”

“Oh, I don’t _hate_ him. I may still despise him somewhat, but I think it’s safe to say we’re even. I mean, he literally stood up and put himself in harms’ way when he saw what those women were dealing with. I can’t say that was an empty gesture.”

“Yup. Shoulda had some idea of how to handle himself without a tennis racket, though.”

She hears something in Jamie’s voice and looks over quickly. “Tell me.”

“Tell you what?”

“I know that look, tough guy. What’d you do, challenge some big handsy Harvard dude to a duel?”

“Aw, c’mon.”

“No, I wanna know.”

“Let’s pull over for a bit and put the top down. Then I’ll tell you.”

“All right,” she grins, approvingly. “But we’re stopping first to get coffee. It’s gonna get cold fast without a cover.”

In ten minutes, they’re sitting in a pullout, a few miles off the Long Island Expressway, with a full tank underneath them and an unobstructed view of the stars and any incoming meteors above them. They’re bundled in jackets and scarves and hats, coffee steaming in their gloved hands.

“This,” Eddie sighs, leaning back, “is just what I had in mind.”

“Yup.”

Again, the silence, only this time full of friendliness.

“So…”

“Right. So. I’m new on campus. It’s maybe the first week of October. I’m barely eighteen, about thirty pounds lighter and two inches shorter than I am now. Not a big guy.”

“Aw, and with all those heavy _books_.”

“Whatever. Point is, I haven’t even hit the gym yet, barely had time to run, so nobody has any reason to know I’ve been boxing for a few years. Or anything much about my family. So you know how Harvard has this tradition of super elite dining clubs? They’re pretty entrenched in the culture. Maybe twenty sophs get formally invited to join a club ever year, after a couple hundred get invited to a first party, then a series of smaller parties. You get the idea. They're all being shut down now.”

“Yeah, I’m familiar,” Eddie says, with a slight edge. The sort of access her father had bargained on purchasing for her, and which she might have gotten sucked into, if her entire life hadn’t shifted on its axis.

“So one of the guys down my hall, an L2 I barely know, is trying to get his card punched for one of these clubs. He’s been to two of the big parties, and he’s just gotten invited to the first of the smaller ones. Maybe sixty, seventy prospects and a whole lot of multi-generational club members. For this one, he’s supposed to bring a date.”

“Thereby proving his heterosexual breeding potential and ability to match a tie to an evening dress.”

“Pretty much, and explain his family background to four generations without sounding like it.”

“Like someone I know.”

“Shut up,” he huffs. “Anyway. This guy, Reginald Farnington – that’s his real name – can’t get a date. None of the girls in Law has any time or interest in old-money dining clubs, and he doesn’t know any other girls on campus. The party’s like a week away, and he’s in a total panic. He starts asking if anyone has a sister, a cousin who’s hot – he’ll buy her a dress, the whole thing. If he doesn’t find a hot girl with Mayflower ancestry, he’s not getting in the club. He can always cut her loose later on and explain she wasn’t the right fit for his family. His words.”

“Oh dear. Ew.”

“Yeah, that was our first major clue to this guy’s issues. So we did some digging around Yale, his old Alma Mater for Poli Sci. It turns out that Farnington has a problem keeping girlfriends. He’s not just picky, he’s jealous and gets off on being manipulative and has a temper. Far as we can tell, he hasn’t ever hit a girl, but we think there’s probably truth to some rumours that he gets demanding and doesn’t stop when he’s told. Especially when he’s had a few.”

“Ugh. They get so much worse when there’s alcohol involved, and then they blame it on that.”

“Yup. So like I said, I’m new on campus, and I’m nobody. Just a weedy little scholarship kid. So when I call Erin to come up and visit me, nobody suspects a thing. Especially not,” he grins, “especially not that Danny taught her the dirtiest Marine fighting tricks he could, before she went to college.”

Her mouth drops open and her eyes light up. “You did not.”

“Oh, yes we did.”

“You sent her undercover.”

“Danny pretty much prepped her for a full op. We put it around that she was my old family friend Christine Somethings-worth-Smythe, studying for her Master’s in Literature at Brown. Part of a wealthy family with coal and railway investments from way back. It was an easy sell, we don’t look that much alike.”

“And Reginald Farnington?” she asks trilling his name.

“Was smitten. Didn’t matter that she was taller than he was and four years older. I introduced them, made all the right noises about her being too much like a cousin to me and way out of my league anyway, and happened to mention it was a shame she wouldn’t be around for this really great party.”

“And she said she might possibly just make it if the right boy invited her.”

“Pretty much. So Farnington makes it official and invites her. Even offers to take her dress shopping, like he said. Buys her this frouffed-out evening gown with like a shawl and matching shoes, the works. Erin’s easy to dress up, like I said, and he got her some designer label stuff that’s hard to wear unless you’re a six-foot string bean.”

“Huh,” she retorts, taking a slurp of coffee. “You got that right.”

“So off they go to this super-important club thing. And Christine is a total hit. She’s talking Literature with the retired Lit profs, and she’s talking politics with a couple politicians, and she’s making Farnington look really good. He’s completely head over heels. And he’s trying to keep pace with her wine drinking, glass for glass.”

“Oh, no.”

“Oh, yes.”

“What I hear, she might actually give _me_ a run for my money.”

“But he doesn’t know that.”

“Go on…”

“So around ten o’clock, she switches to Scotch.”

“Oh, shit.”

“And starts discussing the fine points of really good single-estate Scotch with the party host, a sixty-two year old hedge fund manager.”

“So Farnington is now drunk, sulky ‘cause he thinks he owns her for the night, and jealous because she’s stealing his thunder. And where were you? Back at the dorm waiting for a bat-signal?”

“I’m out front valet-parking cars with a half dozen other students who were hired to remind us of our place in society.”

“Ah. Clever.”

“Erin and I do, however, have a signal worked out. She’s going to say she needs to get some air and clear her head, and get Farnington to walk her around the property. Then I can keep an eye on her, if she needs. I assume they’ll come around the front, ‘cause that’s where I am. I’m working away, bringing up cars and making more tips than a Vegas showgirl, when I hear Erin shouting around the back. So I run. And there’s Erin, with the hedge fund manager in a takedown stance against the wall of his own back porch. And there’s Farnington, screaming at _Erin_. And the host’s wife is literally wringing her hands, just like this, and crying.”

She holds up a hand. “Let me see if I can piece this together. Hedge fund manager offered to walk Erin around the gardens. Show off the place. Maybe cop a feel behind a…hedge.”

“More or less correct, yes.”

“She can either flatter the host and say yes, or flatter her date and say she’d rather stay with him. She picked the host and he tried it on with her?”

“See, now, you’re thinking too nice.”

“What, then?”

“The host told her straight up he was going to take her out back and fuck her. That she’d been teasing him all night. Erin figured she’d get him out of sight of the guests and then take him down. Older guy, not very fit. Farnington followed them, not to defend her, but to _make sure she went along with it_.”

She lets out a sound of pure disgust. “And that’s where you came in.”

“That’s where I came in. Erin’s about to jab the guy’s kidneys to drop him, literally – and Farnington realizes she’s too moving too fast for him to grab her and pull her away. He’s winding up to throw a punch at my sister when I get there. I come around the corner, realize that he’s got no fucking clue how to fight, so I grab his arm and turn him over my shoulder like I’m just trying to carry him away from danger. I walk him off the veranda and let him down on the grass. He bounces up and tries to take a swing, and I lay him out on his back. That happens _three times in a_ _row_ until he gets the message and stays down. I’ve got him down with a knee on his ribs, and Erin’s laughing so hard she lets the host go. Tells him he’s pathetic, and she’s a lawyer, and even though she hasn’t requested bar privileges in Massachusetts, it’s only a formality, and she’d just love to represent his wife in their divorce.”

Eddie claps in glee.

“Was half the crowd outside by then?”

“You’d think so, but no.” Jamie says, after a long draught of his coffee. “They knew when to make themselves scarce. The wife rushed her husband inside, and I think tried to make out like he’d gotten sick suddenly. Erin comes down to Farnington and me, and casually asks if we’re done. So I ask Farnington if we’re done, and he seems to have put the fire out, so I let him up. When suddenly…”

“Oh, God.”

“He starts crying and swearing and screaming at Erin. She’s ruined him, she’s wrecked his career, he bought her everything she’s wearing and introduced her to all these people, and she didn’t even put out – long story short, everything you can’t imagine a dude saying to a girl in front of her brother who’s just taken you down. And I realize that not only has he not figured out _that’s my sister_ , but he’s too far gone to care. So we each take an arm and frog-march him around to the front, because we can see flashing lights getting closer. The Cambridge cops get to see Farnington in full display and have absolutely no problem with charging him _and_ the hedge fund dude with assault.”

“And take you two out for dinner for doing their job, I hope.”

“The next night, yeah, but I think Dad might’ve had something to do with that.”

“Oh, man. Was he pissed with you guys?”

“No…no, I wouldn’t say pissed. He knew all along. It was one of his unspoken object lessons, to let us see it through. See, here’s the thing.” Jamie looks over at her, quite serious now. “And because I _really do_ learn things over time, I should point out that Erin gave me free permission to tell you this. See, for Erin, it wasn’t just about helping my dormmates teach an asshole a lesson and ending up with a two-for-one. She went through her own hell with an abusive boyfriend in college. She likes hard-to-handle, challenging guys, all right, but she was lucky to get away. He messed up her mind pretty good. Liked to go after smart women because it never occurred to them they might misread him. He was a piece of work. Like, replace birth control pills with fakes and poke holes in condoms piece of work. Wanted total control.”

Eddie is speechless.

“So when I talked to her the other day, I didn’t intend to tell her anything about Skip and the shit you went through in college. I was just in a real bind and I knew that if Skip said anything to anyone outside of you and me about what went down, it would be way worse for you than him. I just called her to ask what’s the worst thing that might happen to you. And it was pretty bad. I had to do something, Eddie. I felt like nothing I was saying was getting through to you, and I didn’t want to escalate it even one step above us. And because I am a Grade-A lousy liar and Erin knows post-traumatic reactions when she sees them, she figured out something bad had happened to you. It was her idea to come out with us, actually. She hoped having another woman there who’d been through an abusive situation might be a comfort to you, or a help. And she really likes you, anyway, but it all went wrong.”

“Because I got up in your face right away,” Eddie says softly. She reaches a gloved hand over to take his, across the console. “I really was going to tell you the whole story at the bar that night. Seeing Erin there just threw me off guard, and then hearing that she already knew, and from you…and then having my judgement called into question, even if I knew damn well it was questionable…”

“I’m sorry,” he says. He returns her handclasp. “We were both way outta line, in different ways.”

“ _I’m_ sorry. I should’ve told you before we even got back to the house. But, I mean, what do you do, how are you supposed to hold bastards like that responsible for the hurt they did, when so much time has gone by? And you already gave up your right to a police investigation ‘cause you were twenty-two and believed that you had to sign a non-disclosure agreement for the school to take any action at all?”

Still holding her hand, Jamie leans back against the seat and regards her seriously. “I wonder if that can be rescinded,” he says. “Bystander laws have changed, and there’s laws about posting photos online that didn’t exist then. Schools are under a lot more public pressure these days to cooperate with campus sex assault investigations.”

“To get at Campbell, you mean?”

“Was that the asshole who – yeah. Him, and anyone else. If you wanted to go that route.”

She shakes her head. She’s already thought about it. “The frat’s dead on my old campus. Lost their charter. Wherever Campbell is, he’s going to self-destruct all by himself, especially when he hears about Skip, and the national chapter putting the heat on all the houses. Guys like that can’t handle being told they’re wrong. I’ll make you a real bet we hear about him on the news within a year. And I have done enough emotional labor.”

“You’re probably right. I meant what I said, I do learn a lot from you. Even when you’re pissed with me.”

“Maybe. You’d never have let your judgement slip like I did, though. It’s too ingrained in you.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure, where you’re concerned. It’s happened before.”

“It has? When did you ever make a bad call ‘cause of me?”

“You ever wonder why I went hot and cold on you before your wet-down, after your probation was over?”

“At first. Then I figured the gossip mill had gotten cranked up again and someone higher up must’ve asked you directly if there was anything to it.”

“Pretty much, yeah.”

“Renzulli?”

“Yup. After I went ape-shit on that jerk who took you to the ground a few days before. You were pissed enough about my making you look bad that I think the rest sailed over your head at the time.”

She nods slowly, remembering, and realizes they’re still holding hands. It feels so good, not the least because it’s bitterly cold now, but there are lines. She slides out of his grip with regret.

“But the thing is,” she says, on slightly safer ground, “If there was nothing to it, why didn’t you come?”

“People see what they want to see. What’s just you and me mouthing off at each other on a normal day looks like two cops getting too close, to a lot of the guys.”

“They’re just jealous.”

“Well, yeah. We know we’ve got a good thing going.”

“And you’re a Reagan. I know,” she holds up a hand to forestall him, “I know, that doesn’t mean the same to you as it does to the others. But I still get shade because of it. I’ve even been told I should share the wealth. Request a new partner so someone else has a chance to win favor with you.”

“My favor isn’t worth shit. Not with my dad, anyway. I admit I have better access to Erin and Danny when I need ‘em. But that’s no different from any other cop who has a cousin who’s a higher rank or something.”

“People see what they want to see,” she echoes.

“What do _you_ see, when you look at us?” he asks her, unexpectedly. He’s been doing that more often, lately. Sliding direct questions about their relationship into ordinary conversations. Except she knows that slight tension in his voice, the forced casualness in his face. It means a great deal to him. So much so that he’s only allowing himself a sliver at a time.

She feels a pang of sympathy for him. It’s a bit like hovering five feet apart at a middle-school dance, hoping for something to happen in the last half hour before the lights come up. Except that it’s serious. Extremely so. They know what they might have, if they let themselves, and – all too well – what they would be sacrificing. Not just a great partnership and whole days together, but one of the most stable and experienced working units of the precinct.

Eventually, one of them has to get promoted sometime, and they won’t be confronted with having to make an actual decision. She knows that’s why he’s been flipping her more collars over the past year. He’d like to see her get that shield she’s been working so hard for. He knows he’ll be all right, whatever happens. Maybe she can convince him to take a whack at that Sergeant’s exam after all.

But what does it mean, that neither of them wants to make that decision? Have they made an unspoken agreement to wait it out, or are they just stuck in orbit?

“If we were any other cops, acting together like we do, you mean?” she asks, stalling for time.

“Yeah.”

His gaze doesn’t waver, outwardly calm but curious, and who knows what underneath.

“Sitting talking over old times and sharing stories of past traumas over coffee, watching for shooting stars on the way to a cozy little inn? You sure you want me to answer that?” she asks, meeting his directness head-on. It works; he’s silent. In fact, he opens and closes his mouth, but the softness of her voice reassures him anyway.

He sighs and looks down into his coffee, then up to the sky as he empties his cup. Then he lets out a happy gasp.

“Did you – ”

“I did! And look!”

The world, it seems, has spun just enough to put them in the path of the meteors.

For a while, neither feels the cold.


	5. Chapter 5

The smell of the sea in winter is entirely different from summer. It’s elemental, salt-coppery, untainted by human activities. The incoming sea breeze has kicked up, sending dust sprites skittering across the road as they close the miles to Culpepper’s Inn, though the skies are still dry and crystalline.

It’s just 9:30 pm on a Friday night, and Montauk seems like a different town altogether than it does in summer. Instead of being thronged with tourists and locals, the few people they see are walking quickly in expensive windbreakers and winter boots, urging their dogs to finish up. The only businesses with lights on are a few restaurants and a community center. The sound of the sea rushes up to meet the salt tang as they step out of the car.

“Wow,” Eddie breathes, as they take a moment to stretch. “Manhattan seems very far away.”

“We’re spoiled,” he agrees. “Look at this! Good find, Eddie.”

The inn is a series of four duplex bungalow cottages set in a U-shape, linked by a wooden boardwalk that is clearly meant to echo the larger beachside one, invisible but not far off. In the center is an empty cement swimming pool and large plastic playground set, and a covered barbeque area. The office is in a separate cottage with an upstairs apartment for the managers, and a café on one side. It’s charming, and well-tended, considering the damage that salt air and constant winds do to painted wood siding and gardens.

They grab their kit bags and head inside. Jamie feels a moment of slight dissociation, realizing that he and Eddie are just about to check into a hotel _just because they feel like it_. They haven’t exactly been teasing each other all the way up, but they’ve sure been playing a game of chicken with truths they usually let go unspoken.

 _One thing is for certain_ , he tells himself firmly. They are here to work. The thought of Eddie sleeping so close by is already doing a number on his head, and the whole point – or most of it – was to get a decent sleep before their early check-in at the festival, to be clear-headed.

Despite their lingering starry eyes from the Leonids and the drive, the genial, middle-aged woman who checks them in doesn’t bat an eyelash at their wanting two rooms, especially when they explain about the festival and ask about early breakfast spots.

“Well, the two restaurants you drove by on the way up both open at six-thirty,” Dianne tells them, handing Eddie the registration book. “Or you’re welcome to come to our café. We only open it for breakfast in the wintertime, if we have guests. Nothing too fancy, but the usual basics and plenty of it. Got two other couples here right now, so that’s a nice friendly crowd to cook for.”

He and Eddie share a glance and nod. The quiet of the place appeals to them, and Dianne’s confidence bespeaks a good cook. “Any known criminals among them?” he asks her, deadpan, and Dianne gapes in surprise before Eddie wallops him on the back. “Two more heads at the table, then,” he assures her, as Eddie shakes her head behind him and mutters, “Sorry about him.”

Dianne giggles and hands them each door keys on painted wooden tags. “There you go. Three and four, next door in the East Cottage. There’s coffee makers in each room, and I’ve put tea and coffee in for you. I’ll be here until ten, if you need anything else.”

Their rooms are mirror images of each other, on opposite sides of the duplex, simple but tastefully furnished in white and pine, with framed watercolors of vintage seaside scenes. It turns out that Dianne’s interpretation of “tea and coffee” is in fact an assortment of tea, coffee and hot chocolate pods for the Keurig machines in each room, and packets of cookies and small wrapped chocolates. Under the window is a small table with a pristine, ironed tablecloth, and a wicker stand with magazines and a few weekend-away paperbacks.

“Nice,” Eddie nods, standing in the door of his room. “I’m gonna grab a shower. Want to meet for hot chocolate in a bit? Go over everything for tomorrow?”

“Sounds like a plan,” he agrees, lifting his bag onto the white-painted bureau.

There isn’t really anything to go over, but winding down the night with Eddie over hot chocolate sounds wonderful. Their shifts usually end with them seeing each other to their trains or cabs after post-tour beers, or bleary-eyed breakfasts after a graveyard shift.

Instead of exiting the main door to the boardwalk, Eddie heads for the other door, beside the wall-mounted television screen. There are two small deadbolts on the door, and he assumes there are two more on the other side. Right now it’s open.

“Thought so,” Eddie says, and throwing him a layered look, steps into her own room, closing the door quietly behind her.

He doesn’t hear any deadbolts sliding home. He shakes his head slowly, and tries to decide whether he needs a hot shower or a cold one. He’s never been convinced that cold showers actually work, but he’s not that keen to find out, either, he decides.

He could just as easily get undressed in the bathroom, but the impish side of him points out that Eddie is just a few feet away behind an unlocked door. Even though he knows she won’t – probably – it’s an unexpectedly deep thrill to strip down and get ready for his shower knowing she _might_ decide to wander in and ask him something at any moment. She tends not to wait around closed doors when she wants them open.

This time, however, she stays firmly on her side, and soon enough he hears her shower running.

It’s not long before he’s working off an updated version of his Eddie car-fantasy with an impatient hand under the hot spray.  It’s so good he grits his teeth. The top’s down and the stars are wheeling overhead and it’s cold, but her mouth is warm, so warm around him. Her shorter, springy new haircut makes him want to bury his fingers in the soft strands as she leans over him, but it’s her car and she can do what she pleases in it. Clearly what she wants is to drive him out of his skull, with her skilled tongue and smirking mouth, because she’s warned him: _don’t come, not all over my car_ , and he replies, in a voice he’s never used with her,  _seriously, babe?_ _'cause you’re just too good_ and all she says is, _wait and see_ and licks down and down and…

It’s not that but the sudden realization that Eddie is very likely doing the same damn thing in the next room that has him buckling over with a sharp, intense climax that leaves him shaky-legged for a little while. He reasons, leaning his forearm against the wall of the shower as his mind clears, that taking the edge off was definitely safer than not.

Fifteen minutes later, they’re both squeaky clean, damp of hair and innocent of all but cookie crumbs, sitting at his table in t-shirts and sweats, over late-night hot chocolate. In a pause after double-checking they have the right cell number for their temporary weekend CO, and looking up the safest place to leave a Porsche parked all day near the festival, their eyes meet and hold.

It’s no secret, what they feel for each other. It’s just a constant chore deciding what’s best for them both, and for the job, and to stop the ache getting any worse. Especially when they’re alone together and feeling so close, as they have been more often lately.

Dangerously, he stretches his hand toward hers across the table, and even more dangerously, she slides her fingers through his as though it’s something they do all the time. It’s not a time to dive for the safety of work minutiae or throw up a net of bar-banter. It’s just them. And it feels so good and so right that it takes his breath away.

“We don’t talk about stuff like we used to,” he says. “Tonight’s been really good.”

She nods, slowly. “Sucks that it had to be over something like Skip happening, but yeah. We’ve been busy.”

“We’ve been keeping _ourselves_ busy.”

She presses her lips together and looks sheepish. It’s true. They’ve been doing excellent work, and a lot of it, maxing out their overtime just to have a reasonable excuse to throw a couple of beers back over dinner and then run home after a quick debrief of the day.

“I haven’t told you how amazing you’ve been,” he tells her. “We’ve been racking up some pretty major credit with Sarge and Lt. Graden, and doing good work out there, and I – I don’t tell you enough, I couldn’t do it without you. You keep making me want to do better.”

The look she gives him makes his heart speed up. “Well, I had a pretty decent T.O. I still learn from him every day. But don’t tell him that, or it’ll go to his head. He’s not as humble as he tries to look.”

Once again, there’s that separation between their work-selves and their emotional, deeply enmeshed selves. If they weren’t partners, it would be a pretty simple thing to follow that tug and see where it led. They’d probably have taken a chance on it years ago, as strong and undeniable as the attraction has always been.

It hits him that any relationship they tried to have back then would very likely have fallen apart, because there’s no way they were ready for each other. Not for the kind of connection they know they could have.

“What?” she asks him, her head to one side. He smiles and looks down at their hands, which have been carrying on a whole other conversation despite them.

“I was thinking about things that need to age properly,” he says, and the look on her face is priceless. It takes her a moment to process, and he knows when she gets it. Some of the habitual wariness rolls from her shoulders and her eyes soften.

“There’s probably some truth to that,” she replies. It’s late and she’s tired and her guard is way down, so she plunges ahead and asks, “What do you want to do about it?”

He stands, and pulls her up into his arms. She’s a little surprised, but seems to know he’s not trying to sweep her off her feet right at the moment. He just really needs to hold her again. And she’s soft and warm, cuddling closer, and she smells so good. Her hand strokes his back in a way that makes his eyes drift shut and his head drop down to her shoulder.

The last time he held her like this, they were dancing together. It’s a memory he’s held precious ever since, and even though every one of his rational brain cells is reminding him that this is unwise, he rebels and holds her a little tighter. He feels it again, that lightheaded blissed-outedness, the tingling of every nerve at the closeness of her. She gives him a sense of being alive in his own skin like nobody else ever has.

His Catholic brain punishes him a little for having jerked off so recently to rather less noble thoughts of her, which he has to admit to – but he also knows his Eddie, and how close to reality that idle fantasy might be. Also, he’s now almost a hundred percent sure he wasn’t alone.

“I’m just saying I know it, and I’m done with denying it,” he murmurs. “It’s ironic that being your partner is what keeps me going, and it’s what stops me from saying so much to you.”

“Mm hmm,” she nods – nuzzles, really – against his chest. “One of these days it’ll just be up to us. What then?”

At that he looks down, and she tips her chin up to meet his eyes.  And that sends the flutters through him, all right, because when she looks up at him like that…he swallows hard, and says a little thickly, “Eddie. You gotta know I’m completely crazy about you. It’s not going away. It’s not just _feelings_.”

She shakes her head slowly. “Not for me, either,” she admits, and her hands come to slide up his chest. He closes his eyes for a moment and leans into her touch. “So we can wait till one of us gets promoted, or we can do something about it now. I mean, the worst case scenario is hardly anything bad. It _would_ mean making some huge leaps we haven’t even gotten around to talking about.” She smiles. “Though I guess Baby Eddie sort of jump-started some of that.”

She might have been reaching for an extreme example to warn him off, or test his reaction, but he’s been thinking that conversation off and on ever since.  “Mm hmm,” he nods, still holding her eyes. “Long haul, Eddie. I mean it. You want cards on the table, that’s my hand. I don’t blame either one of us for putting off talking about it so long. We’ve both had stuff to work through. But yeah. It’s getting to be more of a liability than a way to keep focussed and keep building a partnership.”

“And at what point do you agree it’s better to keep working on your stuff together, and not apart?” she adds.

“That’s exactly what I’ve been thinking.”

“You feel really good,” she says, as if it’s the next logical thing to say, and her hands slide up towards his shoulders and back down again to rest against his stomach. He can feel her breath coming faster, and he knows that look in her eye. He has a searing flash of them both giving up control and diving into a wildly passionate clinch on the bed, right this moment, that escapes him in a quiet groan.

“Reagan.”

“Yeah,” he manages. Her hands tighten on his shirt and she rises up on her toes and –

“Kiss me _right fucking now_.”

_Oh…_

He does. And it’s the kiss he’s been dreaming of for so long. He cradles her lovely face in his hands and bends down to find her lips with his, softly, slowing her down when she would speed them up. Warming her mouth with his, taking in her inhaled gasp when he flicks his tongue over her lower lip and captures it again, and kisses her just a little deeper. Her hands clutch and give unconsciously on his chest, as she figures out what he’s trying to give them both. She opens her sweet mouth to him, and he allows himself the barest taste of her, sending such a jolt of intensity through him that he’s quickly breathless. She tastes him back, with a little panting moan that tells him _everything_.

This is where he imagined he’d let go and kiss her with all the pent-up hunger and longing between them. And God knows that’s all he wants. But this is not the night to pull a rapid 180 on their partnership, not so suddenly, and not without putting actual words to the promises and problems they’ve shared over the years.

He eases back and rests his mouth on hers, brushing a last few gentle kisses over her lips. She sighs and leans her forehead against his, tugging at his heart with the familiarity of it.

“Don’t think I don’t want you,” he murmurs, when he finds his voice. She smiles and slides herself along his front down onto her heels.

“I never thought that,” she informs him, with a wicked glint. He feels a silly grin spread all over his face.

“That obvious, huh?”

“Oh, yeah,” she nods, with a half-strength eyebrow, as if he’d be daft to think otherwise. Well, he’s glad of it, even if it’s made things awkward from time to time. And the imp in his brain reminds him that it’s just as well he took care of business before all this, or he’d be standing there with even less self-control and an obvious tent in his sweats. As it is, any more of her touches and he’d probably be good to go before long.

“So I should go off to bed?” she queries, leaning back, her arms around his waist. He pulls a cartoonish expression of regret and kisses her again, quickly.

“Yeah. Early start. Breakfast with Dianne.”

“Well. I’ll see you there, then.” She releases him and steps back, and his body protests the loss of her immediately. “Six-thirty. So six a.m. alarm?”

“Six a.m.” he agrees.

She reaches the door and pauses, one foot in her own room. “Sleep well, partner,” she says softly, and there’s a thoughtful seriousness in her smile that somehow gives him great hope.

“You, too.”

* * * * *

Six-twenty sees Eddie seated in the small café attached to the office. Dianne and her husband Harold have found a pleasing balance between rustic retreat and modern convenience. There are varnished wooden slat tables and handmade chairs, and a long antique sideboard for the breakfast buffet, but high-quality stainless steel steam trays and serving equipment for the food, and another Keurig machine for guest use, more rugged than the ones in each cottage. The sleek floor-to-ceiling windows give a view of the weather and the tides, but at this hour the drapes are closed against the cold and dark. It's a good two hours till sunrise.

Eddie flips through an illustrated history of Montauk artists while waiting for Jamie, her first mug of coffee wafting fragrantly in her hand. Her thoughts are not on the artwork, as striking as much of it is.

It’s funny to think that even a short time ago, she might have woken wondering what just happened and wanting to put a name to whatever it was. But for her and Jamie, it makes as much sense as anything in their perpetually undefined relationship ever has. At the very least, they can both be certain they’re on the same trajectory, and wanting to move forward. How, and how fast that happens, are the only two questions. And it’s just possible that they sort of agreed that this might be, as the saying went, _it._

 _We did seem to recognize something in each other, right from the start_ , she thinks. She revisits their first meeting, and the events of their first turbulent year together. She can’t imagine them making anything work then. She remembers thinking he was a little naïve and certainly less experienced than she was with relationships, and no doubt that’s still true, but she’s glad now that they never gave in to more than a kiss back then. Sure, they might have taken each other to bed, but Jamie would have been horrified at his own breach of protocol and insisted on finding a way to bring them within bounds, and she’d have been irate at the thought of everyone on the squad having to know their business, and it would not have ended well. She still had a lot of anger to work out of her system, and a lot of ego-corners to smooth down. And Jamie needed to get over the worst of his saviour complex and survivor guilt, and stop trying to save everyone from themselves, including her.

“Morning,”

She jumps a little. “Hey. Morning.”                                              

“You look deep in thought,” Jamie says. “Good book?”

“Not the book. Just thinking. All good stuff,” she adds, with a smile she can’t help. He grins back and touches her shoulder.

“I’m gonna grab a coffee myself.”

Before long, they’re settled in with coffee, and plates loaded with a full hot breakfast cooked by Dianne and Harold themselves. It’s as well-prepared and comforting as promised, and they give themselves up to a reverent, hungry silence for a while. The other two couples haven’t arrived yet, which doesn’t surprise them, given the early hour. It gives them a chance to get their heads into the plans for the day.

“Nicky and the boys still planning to come up?” she asks.

Jamie nods. “They’re hoping to get here by noon. They’ll text when they leave home. Be prepared for another onslaught of questions from Nicky about being a female cop in the NYPD.”

“That’s cool. She’s still thinking of it?”

“Maybe. More like she’s got a case of hero worship.”

“Well, sure, I mean, her entire family – ”

“Not us. You.”

“Oh.” She’s nonplussed, but can’t help feeling a wave of happiness. 

“I’m sure if Erin had become a cop, Nicky’d have chosen Law or something. But with all the cousins to compete with for the Best Grandchild trophy, and her being the oldest one, and a girl – yeah, she’s going all out, and you’re her role model.” Jamie informs her, with a grin.

As an only child with no cousins anywhere nearby, this family dynamic is one she can only understand intellectually. And she's certainly never considered being a role model to anyone. She's still trying to atone, in her own way. “Well, that’s flattering. But can't she get any information she wants from anyone in your family?”

“I’m sure she could too, but we’re all guys, and she wants to be just like you.”

“You’re enjoying this.”

“I am, actually. Nicky’s only had her mom and Linda for strong female role models, which is great, but they’re both in the mom-category. She’s technically an only child herself, with no big sisters or older female friends to follow. And I think it’d be good for you, too.”

“You,” she says, “are trying to get me to envision myself around that dinner table without freaking me out. Easing me in slowly.”

“Oh, is that what I’m doing?” he wonders aloud, to his toast.

“Okay.” she says, after a pause.

“Okay?”

“Okay. If Nicky wants to talk, I’m happy to talk. But I’m not going to encourage something if it’s not a good fit for her, and I’m not a recruiter. She should really talk to one soon, if she’s graduating next spring.”

“She has already. Pretty sure Erin knows by now, since the recruiting office keeps in touch with Nicky. They know she’s still deciding. She hasn’t put in an application yet.”

“What do you think?”

“Oh, I think she’s got the call to serve, all right, and the same cop-culture we were all raised with. But she’s the token flaming liberal of the family. Her words.”

“I thought that was you.”

“I’m the undercover liberal. Nicky wants to be out on the front lines with a flag.”

“And she wants to be a cop? Here? I mean, she knows there is no scope for acting on political preference or civil disobedience, or disobedience at all, right?”

“This is why she needs to hear from someone outside the family. I think she has this idea she can reform from within. And that we’re only cautioning her because she happens to be a girl, and our token flaming liberal.”

Eddie nods slowly. “I begin to see your point. She does need someone to talk to. I don’t know if a rock festival is the right venue, but I can certainly see if she wants to talk later on.”

She suddenly has a vision of carrying on this discussion en masse, during one of the legendary Reagan dinner table discussions. Oddly enough, that part doesn’t set off any alarms at all. She knows she could handle herself well in a debate with them. She wonders what it says about her perceptions of family that she finds _that_ a more calming thought than just maybe, they might like her and want to draw her deeper into their tight circle. If her first response to family is to get ready to stand her ground, she’s got a ways to go yet.

Which is probably what Jamie’s trying to nudge her towards, in slow increments, starting with the kids.

 

* * * * *

“Ma’am, have we got a threshold for arrest?”

It’s Officer Cosmidis speaking, one of the local officers who they have come to assist. There are eight NYPD officers and a dozen professional security officers altogether, standing in a huddle with coffee and bottles of water in hand, near the festival’s main stage in a local multipurpose concert venue. There’s an anticipatory buzz in the air as the site techs continue screwing stage elements together and unspooling patch cable by the yard. It’s eight-thirty, and the event opens at noon.

Sergeant Clare, a slim, older woman with gray hair in a tight knot and slide-rule perfect collar and brass, nods crisply. “We do. For the purposes of a large-scale event like this, with a high number of expected marijuana smokers, rather than certifying amounts by weight, we will be using the following scheme: one, two or three normal sized joints, including partial joints, will result in seizure and warning. Four to ten, arrest for possession. Anything over ten, arrest for possession with intent to sell. Given that these amounts may vary in weight, of course we expect lab testing to throw out some of these cases.”

“Thank you, Ma’am. How about pills?” asks Officer Wong. The Sergeant nods again, and flips through a series of post-its stuck to various pages of the duotang folder she has open in her hand, as they all have.

“Pills, yes. This is a small event, but we do expect some pill taking. MDMA is the top prospect, and of course we’re always looking out for GHB, Ketamine, and other pharmaceuticals. I’ve been in communication with one of the organizations that provides anonymous event drug testing, and they will have a table here today and tomorrow. We are also asking no questions of people who use their services, but as police we cannot officially direct people to the table. The event promoters will be doing that. We’re watching for signs of abuse and bad reaction. Should we observe _any_ actual pill sales, of course, we make the arrest. Yes?”

“Ma’am, Officer Reagan, from the One-Two, and this is my partner, Officer Janko.”

“Yes, Officers. Thank you for helping out.”

“Happy to be here. Just wanted to ask, are you expecting any of the real hard stuff – heroin, fentanyl?”

“Well, this is mainly an event for quite young people, and not a very large one, but of course you never know. Especially with common soft drugs being cut with fentanyl. Who here carries Naloxone?”

Jamie, two NYPD officers and two Security guards put their hands up.

“Good. Remember each other. Got your training cards on you?”

The five of them nod. Eddie eyes Jamie from under her cap. One of the local officers had taken a second look at Jamie upon hearing his question, and seems to have recognized him. Eddie wonders how far the tragedy of Gina’s overdose, rescue and death in the middle of the precinct lobby have travelled. She imagines that the story was spread widely as a cautionary tale to all the precincts. It’s the kind of nightmare nobody ever wants to be part of, and certainly nothing that the NYPD wants spread around in the media. The department was lucky that Gina’s parents retracted their legal suit. They will not likely be so lucky another time.

At least, she thinks, if any of them are put in the position of having to resuscitate someone, they’ll know not to let them out of sight until the Naloxone itself has worn off. She’s curious why Jamie would have asked about it. Was he trying to prepare himself just in case, or seeing if he could call someone else over in good conscience? She’ll have to ask him later. She knows he’s still carrying Gina around with him.

“All right,” says Sergeant Clare. “Now, onto page seventeen, regarding on-site sex assault reports…”

It’s Jamie’s turn to quickly slide a look in her direction. She meets his eyes briefly and tilts her chin up. Not on her watch is anyone getting assaulted. The Sergeant details abusive and harassing behaviours to look for, and offers some sage advice on questioning victims off-site and in a safe space. Eddie finds herself trading looks with both Sergeant Clare and the other female officer on duty. Yep. Survivors, all three, and not about to let anyone else go through that if they can help it.

Looks like exposure therapy day for both she and Jamie. She knows the chances are slim of them encountering heroin or sex assaults at a small winter festival geared to, frankly, rich teens and college kids from Long Island and nearby, but you never know. The awareness that they may well need to be present and overcome whatever reactions and muscle-memories they may have retained is enough to keep her in state of vigilance. However good the music is and however friendly the local kids are. If all they have to deal with is explaining why they can’t have their faces on social media, she’ll be happy.

They finish Orientation around ten o’clock, and are released to familiarize themselves with the main stage, owned by Eddie’s father’s old associate, and a smaller secondary location in an old, deconsecrated church building across the street. It’s pretty clear where the folkies and the rockers will each hang out, although there are a few famous folkies playing the main stage tomorrow. The concerts are expected to go on until one a.m., and to start again on Sunday from noon until ten p.m. It’s too cold for camping, but many of the kids, with Long Island connections, have opened family beach houses or are crashing with friends.

She and Jamie will be off shift at seven-thirty tonight, after a full twelve-hour tour, and will work the whole event on Sunday before driving home.

“Nicky and the boys are on the road,” Jamie tells her, checking his phone as they wander the main venue. “They’re still on track for being here around noon. We should be able to cut out for a meal break around then. Looks like they’re planning on staying until ten pm, and then heading back. They’re just coming for today.”

“Oh, so we’ll be able to come back and hang out with them, if we’re not too old and uncool for them. Or if the expected clouds of pot smoke haven’t sent everyone to sleep.”

“I don’t think they’ll want to stick around if it’s that bad,” Jamie says. “I mean, I know I’m their uncle, but they do tell me they’re not into it, and I think I’d know. Nicky’s still bitter about her friend leaving a baggie of coke in her car and getting her suspended for even _being_ in the same car.”

“I don’t blame her. That sucks. No police record, though, right?”

“Well, no conviction, and charges dropped, but still a record. So if she does apply to the force, it’ll still come up, but she’ll have a chance to explain it all. Pretty small potatoes compared to what some of the guys have come in with.”

“Yeah, but she’s a Reagan, and she’s a girl. She’ll have to be 110% perfect on the job, regardless of what’s on her application. At least they won’t sideline her into IA. Not with a name like that, and with so many cops having watched her grow up.”

“True enough. Let’s go check out across the street.”

She’s starting to get invested in Nicky’s plans, and she’s forming an idea of the questions she wants to ask her, to help her sort out whether she really wants to become a cop, and why. It’s a new sensation for her, having a younger woman looking up to her. It’s quite a responsibility, but at the moment, quite a pleasant one. She looks again at Jamie, and thinks of the way he talks about Nicky, and Jack and Sean. Uncledom is a good fit for him, she thinks. He’s good at reading people and giving guidance, but he’s open-minded and young enough to have plenty in common with them as a non-parental figure.

 _Maybe learning to be an Aunt is not a bad intro to the idea of a big, functional family_ , she thinks.

As they head out of the deserted back entrance of the main venue, Jamie catches her look, and quickly reaches out to grab her fingertips.

“Just so you know,” he tells her, “I’m really glad you dragged us out here. And I’m looking forward to later tonight.”

She takes a breath. “Me, too. That was pretty badass about the Naloxone, back there. I doubt it’ll come up, but if it does, Jamie, you’ll be fine.” She squeezes his fingers.

“And you,” he tells her, “Can be as much of a badass big sister as you like for every girl in there, and they will know you’ve got their back.”

She wants to reach up and kiss him, but of course she doesn’t. She sends it to him with a glance, and he returns it in full, and by the time they emerge into the pale November sunlight, they’re just Officers Reagan and Janko, ready for duty.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A double chapter for you patient readers! And more detours to come. But fear not.

“Are they having problems, or something? Is that what Dad meant, when he said to keep an eye on them?”

Nicky eases her mother’s blue Subaru, top of the 2013 safety ratings, off the Long Island Expressway and towards the Sunrise Highway. She flicks a glance in her mirror at Sean, arranged with his legs comfortably across the back seat, though somehow still buckled in. He’s tidily working his way through a bag of Hickory Sticks, because if he gets any crumbs in the car, there’ll be hell to pay from both Nicky and Erin, and even Sean isn’t so slack as to court that kind of danger.

“What? No, Sean, I’m sure they’re fine,” she chuckles, with a note of irritating condescension that never fails to get her younger cousin’s back up. Jack, riding shotgun beside her, opts to shake his head and roll his eyes as if such gossip is beneath him.

Nicky makes note of this for later: Jack apparently knows something about the ongoing Eddie-and-Uncle-Jamie situation, but is sworn not to tell. Of the three of them, Jack has always been the closest to Uncle Jamie. She doesn’t mind it, even though she’s the oldest by five years. Jack’s a lot like she remembers Uncle Joe being: smart but fun, quiet but quick with a zinger, and terribly, terribly earnest. She thinks Uncle Jamie feels a sort of responsibility towards Jack beyond being an uncle. Jamie knows that Uncle Joe died doing what he loved best, and that Jack will approach whatever he chooses for his life path in the same way.

She’d still like to know what’s really going on, though. Uncle Jamie may have the slowest fuse of his siblings, but he’s seemed kind of muted for a long time now, even for him. No wonder Uncle Danny keeps trying to rile him up, like tapping on a fishtank despite knowing it’s bad for the fish. Whether or not his obvious feelings for Eddie have anything to do with that, she doesn’t know. He might have one foot in a long-term undercover op again, which would mean he couldn’t even tell Uncle Danny, and that would drive Uncle Danny around the bend.

“Well, what is it, then? I mean, they’ve been together for how long?” Sean demands.

 _Oh._ That’s a different spin. Her brow creases. _They’re not, are they?_ She slides a quick glance over to Jack, who is now looking out the window. No help there.

“They’re not having problems. They’re not even together,” Nicky insists. Once the words hit the air, she’s not quite so certain, and her brow crinkles, but she goes on: “They’ve been partners for years, Sean. I think by now if they wanted to be together they’d have done something about it. Uncle Danny was just trying to get a rise out of Uncle Jamie. As usual. Pretending to send us out as spies.”

“Oh, man, you guys must be blind. Of course they’re together. It’s so obvious they’ve been dating in secret all along. I mean, I figured Dad just wants proof. Wasn’t that why you said that thing about him not having a girlfriend in forever? To see what he did?”

“No! It was stupid and I said I was sorry after. Uncle Jamie wouldn’t go behind everyone’s backs,” Jack says, a little too quickly. “If they were dating, they’d do it right and get different partners, and we’d know about it ‘cause they wouldn’t have to hide it.”

Nicky adds a cross to a mental checklist. Jack’s right. Eddie and Uncle Jamie might be very discreet and professional, but they would certainly go by the book if they were for real about each other. But they’ve all seen what they’re like together, and Uncle Jamie’s extra-careful face when he mentions Eddie’s name. There’s something there, after all these years.

When she was seventeen, it all seemed too terribly romantic, and she had them painted as a pair of white knights, putting aside their great love for the sake of nobler goals. Maybe some of that is true, but these days she’s more worried what would happen if they had to do without each other. Things happen on the job. Like Uncle Joe dying in a drug bust gone wrong.

“Okay, well, maybe not _dating_ , exactly,” Sean says, with great meaning. Nicky and Jack both protest loudly, and Sean crosses his arms and grins at their discomfiture.

“That’s our uncle!” Nicky gags. “Please!”

“I’m just sayin’,” he says, “Maybe our sainted Uncle Jamie isn’t a saint all the way through. Guess that’s what Dad wanted us to find out.”

“Well, it’s none of our business if he isn’t.” Jack retorts.

“ _Don’t you wanna know_?” Sean asks. And the older two can’t answer that honestly, so they sneak a shared glance and stay silent.

 

* * * * *

 

“Kids have landed,” Jamie says, reading a text from Jack. “Nicky’s looking for parking.”

“Oh, tell her about the parkade I found,” Eddie tells him. “It might be a bit pricey, but I’m betting Erin would approve of a security-patrolled lot.”

“No doubt. Let’s go ambush them.”

He replies to Jack’s text as they scrunch across gravel from the folk venue in the church to the main festival entrance across the street. Eddie keeps near to his elbow and mirrors his movements, preventing him from tripping over solid objects and potholes with her mere presence. It’s just something they do.

The trio soon joins them outside the ticket kiosk, bundled in layers. The boys, nodding politely, are several inches taller than the last time she saw them. Jack, just pushing six feet at age eighteen, has clearly inherited some of his grandfather’s height, though he takes after his grandmother, as Jamie and Joe did. Sean has shot upwards and thinned out, and resembles both his parents, with Danny’s muscly build and Linda’s curls and fine features. He’s also quite a bit taller than her now.

Nicky, who to her chagrin did not inherit her mother’s height, has a long streaky-brown bob instead of her usual pixie cut. It looks fantastic on her. She tells her so, and is surprised and pleased when Nicky grins and gives her a shy hug.

“Good drive?” Eddie asks her, mostly to make conversation. “No trouble on the highway?”

“Nope, none. It’s so nice to get out of the city,” Nicky enthuses. She starts to tell Eddie the story of how Uncle Jamie talked her mother into letting them come. The puppyish eagerness in her voice and eyes confirms Jamie’s assertion that Nicky has a bit of a fan thing going on, which is – she’s not exactly sure how to feel about that. It’s sweet, and Eddie wants to be supportive if she can, but younger people are not something she has a lot of experience with.

She decides that the best she can do is keep speaking to Nicky exactly as she would have wanted an older woman to speak to her, at twenty-two. And maybe that’s what Nicky’s responding to: Eddie doesn’t speak to her like a mom or an aunt or yet another teacher, but as a fellow adult.

Jamie performs an act of benevolent Uncledom by paying half the cost of three one-day wristbands. “Think I can trust you guys not to spend the rest on beer,” he says, with a significant eye on Jack. “I mean, look, you know I’d be happy to sit over one with you guys back at my hotel, but this is a public place and I’m on duty. Don’t risk the venue being shut down for underage service because some other cop spotted them selling you liquor.”

“Or anything else!” Eddie adds.

All three serve up synchronized eye rolls and say thanks for the wristbands. Eddie’s pretty sure they weren’t actually intending to drink, much, but she remembers being eighteen and hanging out with older kids, and how easy it was to get served. _Times have changed_ , she thinks. Most places didn’t start asking for ID, let alone two pieces of photo ID, until the late nineties.

As the kids decide what to do first, he cautions them all to stick together. The kids don’t know of anyone else among their groups of friends who is coming to the festival.

“Stay within sight of each other. Pick a meeting spot if you get separated. Outside that church door is good. Look, there’s streetlights and a sheltered entrance. You’ve got my cell number. And wherever you end up, if you see something – ”

“Say something,” fills in Nicky.

“Make a big scene,” recites Sean.

“But leave the fighting to you because we’re not cops,” finishes Jack. Eddie blinks in surprise, and Jamie grins.

“Reagan family training, I’m afraid. Guys, if things go seriously sideways and you hear me say –”

“ ‘Please don’t hurt my family’, we hit the ground, wherever we are and whatever you’re doing.” Nicky chants back.

“Good. Not that we’re expecting anything, but that’s the point.”

“Happened to Aunt Erin, though,” Sean remarks, eyeing Nicky for her reaction. Nicky nods and chews on her lip. She knows it’s happened more often than that.

“Enough of the heavy,” Jamie says. “You’re here ‘cause you’re awesome kids and you deserve it. Eddie and I are on shift until seven-thirty, but we’ll meet you guys for a late dinner then, okay?”

“And I gather you want to talk about police stuff,” Eddie says to Nicky, whose eyes brighten up again. “Cool. We’ll let the boys go do boy stuff, and we’ll have some real talk over pie.”

“Pie!” Jamie scoffs, rolling his eyes as proficiently as his nephews.

“And ice cream,” says Eddie, firmly, mock-glaring at him.

The boys want to check out the rock venue. Nicky’s more into folk. They agree to do both, poring over the schedule and selecting the acts they each most want to see.

Eddie watches the combined Reagans, settling on Jamie. He feels her scrutiny, and turns to her. “Reagan family training?” she quotes at him.

“They got off with a light dose,” he says shortly. “You catch how Nicky moved real slow and didn’t go near your duty belt when she hugged you? That’s trained in. We had Dad and Pop for at-home Drill Sergeants from Day One. Some of it’s still useful. We’re…not as normal a family as we look like, maybe. Things seem to happen around us.”

“You don’t say,” she says drily.

“You scared off?” he asks, partly in challenge, but with an undertone of hesitancy.

She lowers her head like a ram giving warning and flicks a look up at him. “Oh-hh. Scared? No way, Mister. You’ll have to try harder than that.”

She’s never had a cat, but she know the way that cats listen with one ear swivelled back while pretending to focus on something else. She’s pretty sure that’s exactly what the kids have been doing for the last minute or so.

Oh, well. Nothing to be done about it now. And maybe they’re just studying the lineup.

 

* * * * *

 

The sun begins to dim by three-thirty, and it’s twilight in earnest by four-thirty. Music swirls up and down the entire block as the sun goes down and the lights come up: streetlights, Christmas and Hanukkah and Kwanzaa and generic light displays in the businesses nearby. It’s enchanting, and Eddie feels transported far away from their usual Saturday nights in Manhattan, wading through grimy back alleys, hospital corridors and beer-soaked bars even on a clean tour.

She inhales deep, crisp breaths of sea-smelling air, and smiles across the doorway at Jamie. He holds her eyes and smiles back, and the world feels steadier under her feet than it has in a long time.

From their current positions just inside the front doors of the deconsecrated church, they’ve got a clear view of a happy crowd of folk and jazz enthusiasts quietly swaying in the old wooden church pews, and the milling crowd outside the front entrance. Officer Wong and his partner, Officer Blair, are outside monitoring the rear and side entrance and the two ground-level windows, which might conceivably give access to or exit from the building. They’ll switch patrol routes with her and Jamie when they get too cold. There’s hot chocolate and coffee for sale in the church, which she’s already indulged in once.

She wonders what the evening will bring. True, the kids are all here, but only until ten o’clock, and she and Jamie aren’t back on shift until noon tomorrow. Maybe a long lie-in and a leisurely brunch at a café overlooking the sea…but before that is anyone’s guess.

She’s about to mention something of this to Jamie, because they’re out of sight and hearing of anyone in the church foyer, for a moment, when Officers Wong and Blair clatter up the wooden front steps.

“Heyo-o-o, Twelve-D,” Blair says, his bare hands tucked under his armpits. “Or whoever you are today.”

“Twelve-D will do,” Jamie says. “Time to switch?”

“If you don’t mind. Pretty sure we’re down to about forty degrees out here, but it feels like thirty this close to the water.”

“Ah,” says Eddie, “I’ll come fill up my thermos with you before I head out.”

She and Wong head for the hot drinks table, where she concocts a passable mocha out of overbrewed coffee and hot chocolate mix. The dented, stalwart old 1960’s eighty-cup urn, she thinks, was surely left behind in the church along with the fixtures. Sugar and caffeine and something hot to wrap her hands around are a key survival strategy for winter outdoor patrols.

“So you and Reagan both work out of the same house?” Officer Wong asks her, stirring a generous amount of powdered creamer into his coffee. “That’s lucky. They made my wife and I decide who’d put in for a transfer, soon as we got serious.”

Eddie swallows too fast, and burns her tongue slightly as she stutters out, “Oh – no, no, we’re just police partners, not, like partners-partners. Four and a half years now, since I graduated Academy. We’ve always been at the one-two, but Reagan’s got three years over me.”

More detail than necessary, a classic deflection, but Wong doesn’t seem to notice.

“Oh.” Wong looks momentarily adrift. “I’m sorry, my bad. I mean, I didn’t actually see anything, or anything, it just seemed like… I’m going to shut up now, if that’s okay with you.”

She chuckles, “Don’t worry ‘bout it. We get that all the time, even from people who work with us every day.”

“Ah,” he nods sagely. “One of those partnerships. Yeah, some of them work out like that. You get partnered with someone you just click with, and it’s like, suddenly you’ve put two good computers together to make one super-great system.”

No mystery where his off-duty hobbies lie, she thinks. She likes Wong. Solid, uncomplicated soldier-type cop with simple tastes. The type who makes a Grade-A partner to have watching your back, but probably tells the same stories every week. “Gamer?”

“Yup. CoD, Mass Effect. Sometimes I go live, you know, those full-on war games for police and military.”

“Oh! I’ve heard of those. Reagan's nephews are all over Mass Effect. Those war games sound pretty sweet.”

“They are. Great way to work the poison out, you know? And you learn so much about your people that you never see working the streets.”

Putting two and two together, she smiles at him through another, smaller sip of her mocha, and asks Wong, “So, that’s how you knew it would be serious with your wife?”

He grins and offers a fist to be bumped. “Hell, yeah. My wife, Angie, she goes full on Sarah Connors out there. You and your boy Reagan should try it. Because I may be a bit off the bullseye, but I’m not a hundred percent wrong, Janko.”

“You’re not a hundred percent wrong,” she murmurs.

“Big step,” says Wong, rocking back on his heels and not looking her in the eye, as if they’ve known each other for years and not for one busy morning, “Bi-i-i-g step.”

“Whole lot on the line,” she agrees.

 _Funny, how much easier it is to confess things to people you probably won’t see again for years, if ever_ , she thinks. She wonders how deeply introverted Jamie dealt with confessing to the same family priests for years.

Then she tries to imagine friendly, easygoing Officer Wong going into Confession, and can’t help grinning again. Cops might wear the same uniform, and share the same training, but underneath they were as varied as any other massive workplace. Chatting about live-action war games in the middle of a harp-and-guitar backed folk duet in a church building is a pretty apt analogy, she thinks.

“Well,” he says, and chucks her on the back, “Gotta check up on the hippies. Good luck, Janko.”

“See you.”

After Wong heads off, she stands thinking for a moment. She reaches for her phone and keys in a memo to herself: _Look up public auto race tracks. Race Belle and Mustang? Or stock car racing lesson – b’day?_

Because they may have only taken a baby step last night, but unless she’s entirely mistaken, the day is not long in coming when she can stop shushing the part of her brain that has never really stopped thinking of Jamie as her person to explore life with.

 

* * * * *

 

By seven-thirty, a few hundred young adults and a few older ones have got the party properly going at the main venue. The Boots, a countryish, Celtic-ish rock group made up of four twenty-somethings from Boston, has the stage, and they’re really good. Feet-stompingly, ass-shakingly, floorboard-rattlingly good. Riding the edge of dirty and dance-y, they make the crowd forget that outside, it’s still early in the evening on a frigidly cold night in late November. Even Eddie, who practically gets hives at the sound of country music, is nodding and tapping her toes, and swinging her hips, just a little. No mean feat in twenty five pounds of gear.

Jamie, leaning against the wall with his arms crossed, looks over at her and pinches in a smile. It’s good to see Eddie truly enjoying herself. It’s been a while. It’s not his kind of thing to dance to, but he sort of wishes she’d brought civilian clothes in her car so she, at least, could get changed and get out on the floor before the set ends.

“Hey, Officer!” a guy in a vintage style Columbia University cardigan and a very tall green plush top hat over a mop of brown curls calls to her. “Come dance!”

Eddie laughs and gives him a thumbs up, but shakes her head.

“Pity,” she says to Jamie, leaning in because of the volume, “That’d make a sweet PR photo op, but Sarge is right. There’d be shots of us all over campus social media in seconds.”

“Yep.”

“These guys are pretty rockin’.”

“Yep.”

There are flashes going off all over. All of these acts are unsigned as yet, and are happy to have their photos and bootleg videos spread all over the Internet. For all Jamie knows, he and Eddie might already be on someone’s Facebook page. He repositions himself back against the wall, and crosses his arms again, away from the warmth of Eddie’s laughing breath on his cheek. Eddie takes a sharper glance at him and he sees her smile fade in the periphery of his vision. But in the space of half a breath, she remembers where they are and what their job is, and goes back to surveying the dancing crowd.

Jamie feels a buzz on his thigh and reaches for his phone with some surprise. It’s later than he thought, and Sergeant Clare is letting them know to check in at the Security trailer before they book off for the night. Eddie’s reading the same text on her phone, too, and he takes the opportunity to lean into her, this time, and mutter: “Thank God. Those last couple hours were long. Let’s get outta this gear and see where the kids are at. Maybe go chase a few more falling stars after dinner.”

 _That_ puts the smile back on her face. She gives him one of her high-wattage beams, and as she turns, his palm ends up just below her collar, where there is no Kevlar to block the living warmth of her underneath her uniform, as she cuts them a path towards the door.

Behind them, phone camera flashes light up their backs as they leave, unaware.

 

* * * * *

 

The kids have stuck together, more likely due to social cohesion among strangers than Jamie’s directive. They’ve drifted between the old church and the main stage depending on who’s playing, or to follow crowds who appear to be fans of some of the acts already.  By the time Jamie and Eddie dash back to the Inn, change out of uniform into their usual off-duty garb, and come back to the venue, it’s eight-fifteen. Everyone is cold and hungry, ready for a break and a proper meal in a quiet place.

They find a comfy looking diner which seems to have hired on extra staff for the weekend, because despite being packed with festival-goers, they’re seated in minutes. Nicky wants to catch one last act at the main stage before they all head back home, and thankfully, it looks like they should just be able to make it.

“I am so caffeinated from that coffee in the church,” Eddie admits ruefully. “I think they just kept adding new grounds on top of the old ones and letting it brew all afternoon.”

“Solid food and maybe a run later,” Jamie prescribes, deadpan. Eddie throws him a look and the kids giggle inordinately.

“We must have put in twenty thousand steps and then some, already,” she grumbles, happily contemplating a menu of comfort food. “Plus burning off calories in the cold. I just won’t sleep much, is all.”

Across the table from her, Sean suddenly looks indignantly at Nicky, who sits beside her. Nicky raises an eyebrow back at him, and he subsides with ill grace, glaring at his cousin. Eddie, who is an only child, looks from one to the other and then across to Jamie for a translation.

“There’s a reason Grandpa’s table is as wide as it is,” Jamie tells them, “And it has nothing to do with having room for the serving dishes. It’s because Erin and Danny and Joe and I all have long legs. And so do you. Quit kicking each other.”

“He was _so_ gonna– ”

“I didn’t say anything!” Sean protests.

“It was pre-emptive,” Nicky retorts.

“Well, we don’t arrest pre-emptively, either,” Jamie points out, “So keep your feet to yourself.”

Sean and Nicky settle down, but the performance repeats when assorted burgers and fries and salads arrive. She and Jamie do their usual exchange of items at the table, rather than confusing the wait staff and making life difficult for the cooks.

“What?” Eddie asks them both, as Sean squawks in protest at Nicky’s firm tread on his toes. “He likes tomatoes, I don’t. I like olives and he can’t have ‘em. And don’t get me started on garnishes.”

“Orange slices and parsley look nice on the plate,” Jamie says patiently, “But they are also edible and healthy, so they get eaten.”

“Yes. By barbarians,” Eddie concludes, “But by all means, take mine if you must.”

“You’re not afraid they’ll think _you’re_ the barbarian, in the kitchen?”

“No,” she says, “ _I’m_ secure in my _cultured_ upbringing.”

The table howls.

“Actually, where are you from?” Jack asks. “You a New Yorker?”

“I am,” she assures him. “Born and raised in Katonah. Martha Stewart country. But I went to Rochester for college. Way upstate, almost in Canada.”

“Huh,” Jack says, intrigued. “I haven’t been looking that far away. What’d you study? Crim? Sociology?”

“Nope. Marketing and Financial Management. I know, right?” she grins at the looks on their faces. “I wanted to get far away for a while, but close enough to come home. And I got into Rochester, so that worked out. Then I got an internship in Manhattan after I graduated, and got hooked on New York City.”

“So you and Uncle Jamie both could’ve had Manhattan careers, and you became cops?” Sean asks.

“Your Uncle Jamie and I _did_ have Manhattan careers, and became cops. Sometimes it just happens that way. That’s hardly the strangest crossover I’ve heard of. Parkinson over at the four-three was a Naturopath, and there are a few artists and part-time jewelers who walk the beat every day.”

“Did you hear God tell you to join the police, too?” Sean asks, completely in earnest.

Silence ripples out across the table.

She and Jamie both tread cautiously at the same time. “Uh, Sean, I think you may have misinterpreted –” Jamie begins, as Eddie reaches for a useful juvenile-subject interview question and asks, “Could you say more? I want to make sure I understand.”

Apparently nobody has stepped on Sean’s feet this time, because he says clearly, “When you decided to become a cop, was it because you heard God say you should?”

The silence this time is slightly shorter, as Jamie wipes his mouth with his napkin to orient his thoughts, and launches into an explanation.  “I think what Sean’s talking about is something I said years ago, about the difference between asking for guidance at Mass, and asking for guidance in some random moment of the day. I was trying to decide whether to stay at my law firm after my articling year, or to go further in grad school, or become a cop. And the point was that I felt this – sense of inspiration, I guess, or that my decision came down not just to career pros and cons but an act of faith to take up the good fight. And I didn’t have to be sitting in church praying at the time. It was more like a one-on-one conversation, yeah. And I felt like I was listened to and I got good advice. I didn’t become a cop right away, remember. I came home and worked in the city for a couple of years, but I kept thinking about it and asking Dad and Pop and Danny more questions. When the time was right, I asked God again, and I just knew. Because what I needed was to be certain that it was a call to serve what was right, not out of misplaced family loyalty or for missing Joe or anything like that.”

Sean and Jack, on either side of Jamie, and Nicky, sitting beside her, seem satisfied, as though this is the kind of thing they discuss all the time. And perhaps they do, but for Eddie, it’s fascinating and uncomfortable and more than a little fraught with deeper meaning that she’s not sure she understands. She’s no Catholic, and has no intention of becoming one. She’s not entirely sure how deeply Jamie’s Catholicism is ingrained in him, or what the bedrock tenets of his personal faith are. Sometimes he plays it off like he’s borderline atheist, calling Sunday Mass a weekly family obligation. Sometimes he goes to Confession and gets tipsy with his childhood priest after a bad case. She should probably investigate these things, and soon.

It strikes her then that Sean has been playing her all through dinner. He’s his father’s youngest son and more of an instinctual people-reader like Danny than a thoughtful analyst like Jack. He’s been trying to rattle her cage to get a sense of where she and Jamie are at, and now he’s quizzing her about her faith.

Teenagers these days...

So she looks him dead between the eyes and answers him, and, tangentially, Jamie.

“Well, I’m not Catholic,” she starts off, point-blank, “But I became a cop to right a lot of wrongs, and to make sure that other people got to right wrongs in their own lives, too. I think whether you call it hearing God speaking to you, or whether you suddenly see you have a chance to make a difference, it’s still an act of faith. I do remember it felt almost like a physical shock when I first thought of it, like – really? I could do that? It hit me that I had everything I needed to be a good cop, and I thought I could be useful out there. It wasn’t so much knowing what I wanted to do, but wanting to see what I was made of. I had to trust the NYPD to put me to use in a good way, and trust my gut to know if they weren’t. So yeah, I’d say faith was definitely a big part of it, but from a different angle.”

Sean nods, and seems to get that she’s decoded his head, because he grins sheepishly and quite charmingly, and goes back to his burger.

“I wish we could talk more about all this,” says Nicky, wistfully, “But it’s later than I thought.”

“We will. If you really want to go to that last show tonight, that’s cool, or if you want to stay here and talk, we can let the boys go. I’ll even let Jamie take my car. Or we can always meet up back home. That’s easy enough.”

“Maybe let’s do that?” Nicky suggests. “Then there’s no rush.”

“Deal,” Eddie tells her. “We’ll meet up after shift sometime. This one – ” she angles a thumb across the table, “can cry into his beer without me for once.”

Jamie blusters. She and Nicky share a grin.

The rest of the dinner conversation revolves around Jack’s upcoming college decision and Sean’s recent gravitation towards ROTC and a military career. It’s lively and hilarious, with family stories and genuine affection underneath the verbal volleys, and it’s unlike anything Eddie’s ever experienced.

 

* * * * *

 

They drop the kids back at the festival just in time, and since they’ve got free passes for working the event, they stick around, too. On stage are a foursome of young women of various ethnicities, fronted by a Middle Eastern Gwen Stefani lookalike, dishing out mutually supportive girl power in perfect close-part harmony with a throbbing synth beat. Jamie can see why Nicky likes them. Sean’s definitely digging their stage outfits, but is so-so on the music. They both head for the dance floor right away, and are quickly lost to view.

Jack is hovering near Jamie and Eddie, happily nodding and shuffling his feet in a way that takes Jamie right back to being eighteen himself. He makes a mental note to nudge his nephew into taking a few proper ballroom lessons sometime. He and Joe and Erin did that, every Saturday night for all of the summer he was twelve, Joe seventeen and Erin eighteen, through the church youth group. Danny begged off as an “adult” helper, and would never, ever think of putting Jack into a dance class, but Linda would have. The kid will charm the right girl off her toes one day, in his own way.

“Was that weird for you, at dinner?” he murmurs to Eddie. They’re standing in the same place as before, shoulder to shoulder along the wall beyond the pulsing dance crowd. Out of uniform, they seem to be far less conspicuous than earlier, and he’s enjoying being able to lean in close and talk without hollering.

As far as Reagan family dinners go, tonight was as fun and lighthearted as they tend to get, but daunting enough if you’re not used to it. He thinks Eddie decided to treat it like a challenge situation, something that always brings out the best in her.

“Very weird. And yet so _normal_ ,” Eddie replies. “Family dinners at my house were…very different. Just Mom and Dad and me, unless we had people over, but it was always so tense, and I never understood wh – ”

“Officers!”

It’s the kid in the green plush top hat. He’s clearly stoned but knows he need a cop, and he’s recognized them, even off-duty. He closes the remaining fifteen feet between them.

“What’s up, pal?” Jamie asks, as Eddie scans for uniforms in the area and reaches for her phone, through muscle memory.

“This guy, he’s tryin’a get this girl to leave with him, and she is just not into it, you know? And he’s totally not letting up, he was grabbing her arm and pulling – ”

“Take us there,” Jamie tells him, as Eddie connects with the Security team by phone. They have to cut right in front of the dancing crowd, against the stage, to clear a path. The kid takes them to a marked Fire Exit door on the other side of the stage, which leads into a short beige-painted cinder-block hallway with a freight elevator in one wall and a couple of dingy looking metal doors on the other. At the far end, in the dark, is the external door. 

“Shit!” mutters the kid. He points to the nearest of the metal doors, which is locked shut, and turns to Jamie and Eddie. “They’ve locked it. We were just smoking up in there. I know, I know – and this guy I’d never seen earlier, he just – ”

“How many in there?” asks Eddie, knocking on the door, which clangs loudly back at them. “Just pot? Anyone have any guns that you know of? Knives, blades?”

The kids looks white and terrified. “No! No! Nothing like that. There were five of us. I don’t know the guy or the girl he brought her back here. We had both doors wedged open, I mean, this one and the outer door, so the smoke would clear. She grabbed the door thing, the frame, and tried to hang onto it. Then two more kids were just, I dunno, _here_ , just standing here, and one of them yelled to get the cops.”

“Outer door,” Jamie repeats, moving towards it, as Eddie thumps on the metal door again.

“Hey!” she barks. “This is the police. If anyone’s in trouble in there, shout out. Make a noise We’re here to help. We’re getting the door opened.”

They’re both slipping into the mode in which time stretches out and seconds seem leisurely, but a few things happen simultaneously:

The door to the venue slams open and a blast of music and heat surrounds an NYPD cop as he and his partner come pounding into the hallway.

A scared voice behind the metal door calls out “Please don’t hurt us! We’re stuck!”

Something bangs heavily against the outer door, and there’s a muffled curse and scraping sound, and a younger voice yells out, “ _Uncle_ _Jamie! Eddie! Out here!_ ”

It’s Jack’s voice.

Time snaps back.

Jamie squats, grabs his weapon from his off-duty holster in the small of his back, and pulls down the latch bar of the outer door. Eddie slithers her back against the concrete wall to cover over his head, her own weapon retrieved from her handbag and now in her shooting hand.

“Jack! Clear the door!” Jamie yells, and shoulders it open.

For a second they see nothing but nighttime and streetlights over the crowded gravel parking lot. Then Sean’s voice, behind the angle of the door: “We’re okay, Uncle Jamie. We’re over here.”

There’s the sound of a shove and a grunt, and Jamie stands up and looks around the door as Eddie circles around beside him, still covering their exposed side.

“What in hell?” Eddie asks.

Jack has a man in a street-dirty takedown lock against the brick wall of the building, beside the door. The man, in jeans and a hoodie like any other student, looks like he’s got ten years and maybe forty pounds on Jack, but Jack has his arm twisted right up his back with his thumb between his shoulder blades. Jack’s other thumb is about a quarter inch from the man’s eye socket, as his face is squished to one side against the wall by Jack’s forearm, and his knee is right up in the man’s groin from behind.

 _Danny-style_ , notes Jamie _._

Sean, meanwhile, is standing ten feet away with one arm around a distraught young redhead who was clearly not planning to go outside, based on her clothing. She’s too shocked to cry, and has her other hand braced against the wall.

Before anyone else can say another word, two of the on-site NYPD officers come pelting around the corner. Nicky isn’t far behind, though she’s giving them room.

“Police! Don’t move!” the lead cop shouts, shining a superbright flashlight over them.

“We’re NYPD,” Jamie calls, pointing to himself and Eddie. He points to the badge on his belt, as Eddie swings hers out from under her sweater, on its chain. “Let’s untangle this. Jack, buddy, let him up.”

“You’re not fucking going _anywhere good_ ,” Jack hisses at the man, as one of the officers takes over with handcuffs, and leads the man to one of the cruisers that has arrived in the parking lot. Jamie’s never seen Jack so amped up. He didn’t know Jack’s dial went that high. Sean’s the one with the short fuse.

“What in _hell_?” Eddie asks again. “We heard that some guy…but how did you guys even get here?”

Apparently the officers have some idea what’s going on already. They agree that Jamie and Eddie should check the kids over and call Danny, as Sean and Jack are still minors. Nicky, at twenty-two, doesn’t need any input or intervention from Erin, but Jamie is sure that won’t be long in coming.

“Take a breath,” he tells Jack, who is pacing and clenching his fists rhythmically. “Don’t say anything yet. It’s gonna take a few minutes for your system to stand down. Take your time and then we’ll get everyone’s stories.”

Eddie, being the only female cop on the scene, automatically takes charge of the girl standing with Sean. “Sweetie, are you hurt? Do you need a doctor? Lemme see your face.”

The girl shakes her head, but then holds out her arm, which has red streaks that might bruise later. Eddie calls for a bus to come and check her out. Sean looks a little helpless, but has the brainwave to offer the girl his jean jacket, which she accepts gratefully.

From the sounds emerging from the corridor, the remaining stoners have been freed from the locked closet.

Jamie thinks of the upcoming phone call with Danny, and his stomach plummets.

 _I am so dead_ , he thinks.

 

* * * * *

 

“Danny, far as I can tell, your boys just did you seriously proud. Let me help sort this out and then they’ll call you themselves.”

“They sure as hell will. Erin know yet?”

“Not yet. Please. Nicky’s not really involved. Let me handle this.”

“Call me in thirty minutes, whatever stage things are at.”

“Thirty on the clock.”

A few minutes later, he’s sitting beside Sean in the Security trailer.

“We did not go back there to smoke up!” Sean says, affronted, to Officer Varga, the older, heavily moustached cop who is interviewing him. Jamie is acting as Sean and Jack’s responsible adult, which means he can speak to and help clarify questions for them, but not direct their responses.

At least the trailer is warm, if not exactly spacious. Nicky and Jack are silently waiting their turn to be interviewed, in the next compartment of the trailer, under the watchful eye of a site security guard who is under orders not to let them talk to each other. Marjolaine, the girl who Sean and Jack pulled away from her attacker, is sitting safely with Eddie and another of the local officers, in one of the upstairs offices of the main venue.

Officer Varga does not look convinced, despite Sean showing no signs whatsoever of being under the influence of anything but the tail end of an endorphin rush.

“Nicky’ll tell you,” Sean persists. “There was this really great band that was up earlier, called The Boots. We saw them before dinner, and when we came back afterwards, we saw them all head for that back door. We wanted to do something nice for Uncle Jamie and Eddie, and we thought maybe they had CDs with them. So we ran after them to ask. They said they did, upstairs, so we went up in the freight elevator with them to the office. Nicky’s got two CDs of theirs in her purse. The guys in the band’ll remember. We must’ve been the last kids they talked to before they started packing up.”

“And did you talk to anyone else in the back hallway, before you went up?” Varga asks.

“No, we didn’t talk to anyone, but there were a few kids in that janitor closet,” Sean says, “They had the door wedged open with this broken brick, and they had the back door open too. ‘Cause they were smoking up in there and didn’t want the smell to get into the dance floor. But they were all really chill, and they were just sitting around, when we went up. They weren’t making any trouble.”

 _I am so dead_ , thinks Jamie again. Pot’s just pot, but Danny has a touchpaper reaction to kids doing drugs, and he’s not going to be happy to hear how casual Sean is about them. Or about leaving back entrances to venues wide open and only guarded by stoned teenagers.

“Okay. So you and your sister – ”

“Cousin.”

“Oh, she’s _your_ kid?” Varga glances up at Jamie, confused. “I thought the other boy was.”

“No, no, I’m their Uncle. Nicky is my sister’s kid. The boys are my brother’s kids.”

“Big Irish family,” Varga opines, knowingly. Jamie shrugs, _fair enough_ , and the officer turns back to Sean.

“Okay. You and your cousin go up in the elevator, and nobody seemed upset about anything at that time. How long were you up there?”

“Maybe ten minutes. Fifteen, tops. We knew we had to leave soon. Then we left the band there, packing up their stuff, and came down by ourselves.”

“Okay. And then?”

“When we got off the elevator, there was another man in the janitor closet we hadn’t seen before. We couldn’t see much, ‘cause his back was in the doorway. But we could hear a girl, crying like she was hurt, and this man had her by the arm and was trying to pull her out of the closet. He kept saying, “We’re gonna have such a great time,” and laughing this freaky laugh.”

“So what exactly _could_ you see going on with the man and the girl?”

“He had his back to me. He had one foot outside the door. I think he had both hands around the girl’s arm. She saw Nicky and me when the elevator opened. Then everything sort of happened at once. The man got the girl out of the doorway and started pulling her towards the back door. Nicky screamed for the other kids to help, but they didn’t. They were just frozen. Then one of them, this kid with a crazy green hat, he got up and ran back into the hall, to try to find a cop or get help. I guess he found you guys. Nicky called 911, but I figured that would take too long, so I sent a text.”

Jamie can’t help but ask, “But why’d you text _Jack_? Why didn’t you text me, or call?”

“I tried to! I thought I was texting you. I musta hit Jack’s name instead of yours. Look, you’re right after him on my contact list.” Sean fishes in his jacket pocket and pulls out his phone, holding it out.

Jamie thumbs over to his texts. He reads the most recent one, and nods slowly. “Ahh.” He hands the phone over to Varga.

 _911 SOS._ Sean had texted, as per Reagan training, meaning that he was texting of his own accord and not being held hostage. _Back exit door main stage. Man trying to pull girl away._

“So Jack got that, and ran like hell without a second thought, since Eddie and I had just left to follow the kid in the hat. He didn’t know we were all chasing down the same thing,” Jamie says.

“And Nicky ran around the front to show the cops where to go,” finishes Sean, as if it makes perfect sense once you know.

Varga looks between them, as if he’s missed a page but isn’t sure how far back.

“I get that you thought it was urgent, but did you even think for two seconds about running into danger like that?” he demands. “Son, you have any idea how much danger you and your brother put yourselves in? That man could’ve had a gun or a knife on him. Or a needle. He could’ve held that girl hostage and made you back off.”

“Oh – no, he didn’t have a gun,” Sean assures Varga, “He didn’t have a leg, shoulder or back holster, and Nicky and I both saw that he didn’t have anything in his back pockets, not even a wallet. The pocket of his hoodie didn’t have anything heavy in it. I mean, he might’ve had a knife in there, but it would’ve had to have been really small, too. Nothing bigger than a Swiss Army. He couldn’t come after us and still hold onto that girl. So we figured as long as we got her away from him, we didn’t have to be too worried about him. I thought he’d run away, but Jack thumped him pretty good. Yeah, we…we didn’t think about needles. God, and Jack really got into it with him. He could’ve gotten a needle stick.”

Sean turns to him. “I guess that’s what Dad’s gonna be most angry about. We were supposed to leave any physical stuff to you guys. But honest, Uncle Jamie, I don’t think there was time. He was dragging her pretty fast to the parking lot.”

Jamie decides it’s time to take pity on Varga, who looks like his brain is throwing out sparks.

“We’re those Reagans,” he says. “PC Reagan is my dad. Detective Reagan at the five-four is this one’s dad. Big Irish family, like you said. These kids are practically Academy trained, even if they’re supposed to hang back.”

Varga groans. Sean looks at Jamie, unsure if he’s in trouble or not. Jamie shakes his head comfortingly.

“Lemme talk to the older one, if he’s calmed down now,” Varga sighs.

 

* * * * *

“Okay, Mom. Yeah. Love you, too.”

Standing by the door of the Security trailer, Nicky passes her phone to Jamie, who winces. “Hey, Erin. My head will be on your desk on the morning.”

Erin, thankfully, cracks up at that. “Your problem is with Danny. I can’t stop my adult daughter from going backstage to hit up a band for a CD, or bringing Sean with her, but Danny’ll find a way to hold you responsible.”

“And yet he and Dad are the ones who taught the boys not to look away, and how to fight. At some point that’s going to supersede self-preservation. Yes, I’m just stalling for time and practicing what I’m going to say to him. The kids are all fine, and the hotel has room for all of us. We’ll make sure they’re well rested and fed and send them back tomorrow morning.”

“Okay, then. You and Eddie have a fun shift tomorrow,” Erin says, with a grin in her voice. Jamie rolls his eyes. The story, and his family connections, are going to be all any of the Security team talks about tomorrow.

“I thought you were being nice to me.”

“That was me being nice. Oh, wait. Don’t hang up.”

“Okay?”

He hears Erin typing and clicking away on her laptop for a moment, and then an indrawn breath.

“Complications,” she says, slowly.

“Of what sort?”

“I’ve been checking out Twitter tags and the Facebook page of the event,” Erin says. “Did you and Eddie know you were being photographed?”

“We were being careful not to take photos with anyone, but there’s not much we can do about random people taking shots of us at work. Why?”

“There’s some good ones up,” she said. “Looks like a fun event. But Jamie, just because your precinct knows what you’re like together doesn’t mean that others won’t make assumptions. If you guys left Jack and Sean unsupervised while you were having fun together, that could look bad.”

“The kids were on a dance floor with five hundred other teenagers, and Security every twenty feet along the wall. And we weren’t the arresting officers.”

“Was the Security team not told to prevent kids from going out the back door that leads to an outer exit, or to the offices upstairs?”

“Of course we were. My guess is that every band had so many volunteers helping them get their gear on and off the stage that whoever was stationed on that door just gave up checking wristbands. Varga’s going through the entire detail that was on shift, so whoever was there will be dealt with. And Eddie and I were very much off duty, and everyone knows we’re friends. You still worried about a few photos of us not scowling at kids?”

“You’re definitely not scowling at kids,” Erin says “There’s a bunch of variations of “Hot Cop Couple” tags, and there’s a few of you leaning in close and smiling.”

“It was loud in there.”

“No doubt, but you can’t hear that in a photo. And then there’s a couple shots of you guys walking together, and you’ve got your hand on her back, and Eddie looks blissed out. In uniform. If that doesn’t complicate this case, it’s going to blow up back at the office. It’s the look of the thing, Jamie. You’ve always known you two were playing with fire.”

“Uh…”

“Shelve this for now. Call Danny. Talk to Eddie later. After the kids are settled in for the night.”

“Right. Thanks for the heads up. Seriously. I owe you.”

“I’m gonna collect. G’night.”

 

* * * * *

 

Jamie, trying to take his mind off of his relationship with Eddie, has the bright idea to have Varga call Danny back. He figures, correctly, that Danny will be less likely to take out his anxiety and anger on a fellow cop than his sons or his kid brother.

Varga upsells the boys’ courage and Danny’s remarkable skill in training them to take down an attacker. He drives the point home with a boatload of praise for Jack and Sean coming to the aid of a girl in trouble, and how more young men need to step up. Yes, he agrees, they do advise the public not to try to be heroes. Yes, the boys were rash and it could have ended differently, but the cops were literally right around the corner, and the boys stepped back the second they were on scene. Yes, they’re dealing with the Security guard who let the kids come and go through the back door. He’s not going to be working Security sites in New York State again.

Yes, Varga adds, seriously, they believe that the girl would likely have been abducted, if Jack and Sean hadn’t jumped in as quickly as they did. There was nobody close at hand to help them, and they did everything they could to summon the police.

Danny has been reduced to grumbling, with sporadic flare-ups, when Jamie takes the phone back. Jamie can tell he’s pacing, but the fear and anger has started to metabolize into a deep need to see his kids with his own eyes. It takes another twenty minutes, but Jamie manages to convince Danny not to drive all the way out to Montauk overnight and collect his sons. The final argument that convinces him is that the Montauk precinct might want to talk to the boys again in the morning. That done, Jamie passes his phone over to his nephews, who aren’t sure whether to feel like juvenile delinquents or big damn heroes.

From the look on Jack’s face when he hands the phone back, he gathers Jack’s feeling suitably chastened, but otherwise mighty fine about himself.

The man they arrested, Richard Beattie, has an outstanding warrant in Jersey for three similar attempts. His MO is to attend festivals and events that draw a younger crowd. He dresses like them and tries to blend in, and then tries to lure or drag a girl out of the venue who doesn’t look like she’ll fight back. He hasn’t succeeded yet, and he’s not likely to have another chance for a long time.

* * * * *

 

“Boys asleep?” Eddie asks, in a whisper.

“Out cold,” Jamie whispers back. “They kept saying they were too wired, but five minutes of watching the eleven o’clock news in bed, and they were both done. Adrenaline does that.”

Eddie smiles, understanding. She leans back in her swing and looks up at the night sky. Beside her, Jamie rocks back and forth, pushing off on his toes and back again. It’s below freezing now, but they need to connect, and they won’t be out long. Around the playground, the other cottages are dark, and if they’re very quiet, they might not attract any attention. They could go for a walk, but they don’t want to leave the kids.

Nicky has the bed Jamie slept in last night, with Eddie on the other side of the cottage from her. Jamie, Jack and Sean have the other family cottage, with the boys in two twin beds and Jamie with a king to himself. Dianne and Harold were only too happy to make room for them at short notice, especially once Jamie had explained the situation.

“Nicky’s still up, I think, but she’s about done,” Eddie whispers. “Jamie, look, it happened really fast, and everyone’s going to be fine. Marjolaine’s back home and jerkass is in jail.”

“What about you?”

“Me?”

“Eddie, that guy was dragging her to his car. That didn’t trigger any…”

She thinks about that. “Actually, no,” she says. “I didn’t even think of what those boys did to me at the frat house. That thing with Skip helped put that to rest, in a weird way. I tell you what I was thinking of, though – you and Erin taking down that rich entitled asshole who tried to lay a finger on her. Looks like it’s just a genetic response.”

He huffs a soft laugh, and reaches for her hand. Sliding her gloved fingers through his, she smiles at him. Apparently he’s working his way down a mental list, because his brow creases a little at the sight of their hands, and he looks back up.

“What is it?” she asks.

“This is not,” he begins, “not anything like I expected tonight to be. I don’t know what exactly I envisioned, but it wasn’t babysitting the kids all night and sneaking out into the cold just to see you.”

He’s trying to make light of something. He wouldn’t normally use the word “sneaking” in regards to them, no matter how nebulous or private their relationship is at any given moment. “Tell me,” she murmurs.

“Erin was checking out the festival on the social media sites while I was on the phone with her,” he replies. Eddie has a sudden sharp pang of wishing they were curled up together in a warm bed, talking quietly like this, as he goes on: “Even on the public pages, there’s a bunch of photos of us. Probably more on people’s Snapchats and whatever. Just being us, you know, but with this arrest hitting the news tomorrow, they’re going to get more attention. It’s not just about Renzulli being pissed that we’ve blown any chance of working undercover again. There’s going to be a whole lot of questions about us that I don’t know if we can even answer yet.”

“Oh. Shit.” She hadn’t even thought of that. “Well, he knew the risks as well, and gave us the green light, don’t forget. But we weren’t doing anything wrong.”

“Yeah, well, you and I know that, but you know how we look to other people.”

She thinks of Wong, and his kindly-meant assumptions and advice. “Yeah…that.”

“It just robs us of having time to sort out what we want to do. That, frankly, is a bigger concern to me than not working undercover. There’s always more undercover officers. I just really don’t want to have had last night happen, and us deciding we should do something about…this thing we have…and then turn around and deny it to everyone like we always do. But I don’t want to rush us, either. We got a lot still to talk to sort out, and you’re too important.”

He’s very serious as he says this, holding her eyes in the dim light of distant streetlights. It actually takes her breath away for a moment. This is real talk.

“Well,” she says, softly, “Getting out in front of it doesn’t have to mean making any major statements. We’ve been using being partners as an excuse not to move forward for years. If we’re moving forward even a little bit, maybe it’s time to bite the bullet and drop the excuse. Then we have all the time we want, on our own terms, and it’s nobody else’s business anymore.”

“Except everyone’ll make it their business.”

“Only for a little while,” she predicts, “Then something else will come along.”

He sighs, and a puff of steam drifts away over his head. “I don’t want to be partnered with anyone else. I really don’t. You’re part of my entire practice of being a cop. You make me better every day.”

“I feel like that, too,” she tells him. “But that’s the price.”

“I know it is. And I will. It just feels almost like grief, the thought of it,” he says. Her throat tightens up. It really does feel like the anticipatory grief of knowing your time with someone deeply beloved will soon come to an end. He’d be one to know, and he’s dealt with more than he should have had to.

“I know,” she whispers. 

Then, thinking of Jack and Nicky being in their last year of high school and college, respectively, she says, “Maybe it’s our graduation year, too?”

“You really shouldn’t still be with your T.O.,” he offers, with a small sideways smile.

“You really shouldn’t still be with your distraction from losing Vinny,” she points out, since they’re going for the truth jugular tonight.

“You think that’s what they were doing when they put us together?”

“I totally do. I mean, I’m sure it made sense on paper, but for you to become a T.O. with only three years? That never struck you as a little odd? No, I guess not. You Reagans.”

He has the grace to look a little sheepish. “I did wonder, but then we got so busy and kept on getting better, so I didn’t think about it.”

“You should be a Sergeant, at least,” she continues.

“You’re gonna get that shield any day,” he predicts.

“And either Jack or Nicky or both of them is going to get suited up before long,” Eddie offers her own prediction. “And the Reagan conveyor belt continues.”

“Things could still go completely sideways,” he reminds her, still holding her hand. “No telling how this thing tonight will play out, or how Renzulli’s going to react to any of this. We’re going to have to call him first thing in the morning, before anything hits the news.”

“We’ll deal with that tomorrow.”

“Tomorrow,” he agrees, standing up. He holds out his other hand, and she takes it, standing too. She drops her head against his chest and sighs.

“I’m suddenly very tired.”

“Well, no wonder,” he murmurs. She feels a warm tingle as his breath stirs her hair. “Hey, Eddie. This is probably a really bad time to ask –”

“Mm hmm,” she hums decisively, nodding against the warmth of his thick sweater, under his leather jacket. “We totally would've.”

“How’d you know – ”

“Oh, please.” She looks up at him. “You think we’d have kept our hands off each other for more than ten seconds after we got back, if everything had worked out according to plan and the kids had gone home? And then we’d have been up all night panicking about what to do about Sarge, and us, and everything.”

He laughs softly at that. “Fair point.”

“I will say one thing, though. Everything I said to Sean, earlier, about taking a leap of faith to find out what I was made of? That’s…sort of how I’m feeling again.”

His eyes gleam in the darkness, seeming to see deeply into hers, and he tilts her chin up. His mouth is warm on hers, his kiss brief but intense, and with a regretful sigh, he steps back and takes her hand again.

“Morning’s going to come too soon,” he says.

“Thing are going to get real.”

“Leap of faith,” he says.

“Leap of faith,” she replies.


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sunday sermons and personal reckonings. A short little half-day of rest before the journey takes off again.

Under the door that separates their rooms, she can see a sliver of light, and she knows that Nicky is still up reading, or Facebooking, or whatever it is that will help her unwind after the events of the night. Eddie feels a nearly imperative urge to stay awake until Nicky’s asleep, no matter that she herself is barely awake. She wonders if that’s how mothers and aunts and big sisters always feel about the kids in their lives. She’s surprised at how physical a sensation it is, how it lodges in her body like the long watchful stillness of a stakeout.

Sitting in her fleecy warm sweats and fuzzy socks at the little table in her room, her laptop open but ignored, she shakes her head at herself. _Trust you to mix up police work and parenting_ , she tells herself.

At least she knows she’s a good cop.

There was a time she thought she had the best possible parents to emulate: a successful, doting father who adored and respected his beautiful wife and all her charity work. A kind, interested mother who urged her to make the best of her brains and talents, and to regard the world as a friendly place.

How hollow, how easily shattered that illusion had been. Once her father had been exposed, their world had shrunk to the three of them, as everyone around them turned their backs. And then Arvin went to jail, and there was only Eddie and Mira left. Her mother, embittered and full of self-recrimination as well as righteous fury towards her husband, came perilously close to needing to apply to the same charities she had supported for years. Years of unprocessed rage and the terrors of her own childhood, in a country riven by decades of bloody religious ethnocide, came tumbling to the fore, once her adopted country of America no longer felt safe.

Eddie was sickeningly glad to be living in New York City then, and too busy with mind-numbing, high-pressure work as a researcher in an investment bank to be within easy reach. She helped her mother with the bills and telephoned her every week, often sitting silent for half an hour at a time as Mira unraveled on the other end.

And Jamie had once thought that she was looking down her nose at _him_ over _his_ family. She could almost laugh at the absurdity.

She really should make a proper visit to her mother, she thinks. It’s been over a year since she saw her in person, due to one reason or another on both of their sides, though they’re only an hour apart. Mira, much happier and busier, has been slowly reabsorbed back into the charity-work scene, though as a paid administrator now rather than a philanthropist and fundraising hostess. Mira’s figured out Skype, and Eddie has convinced her that video calls are just how busy New Yorkers keep in touch with their parents these days.

She doesn’t mind her mother’s second husband Bradley, but there’s nothing to mind about him. He’s as unlike her magnetic, charismatic father as can be. Bradley manages the office of a reliably profitable landscaping business that serves the terrace flowerbeds and backyard pools and tennis lawns of Katonah. He golfs and lunches with the same three buddies every week in summer, or they watch sports and lunch, in winter. He has an adult daughter called Julia who lives in California. That’s about all she knows of him. He treats Mira with deep fondness and a sort of awe, and gives her the security she’s always craved, and Eddie is grateful.

“Eddie?”

A soft knock brings her back with a jolt. She gets up, bone-weary after the day it’s been, and opens the passage door. Nicky, in an old, faded NYPD t-shirt of Jamie’s that ended up somehow in Eddie’s gym bag, smiles shyly.

“Hey. You doing okay?”

“Yeah, I’m fine. I just wanted to say goodnight.”

“Just a day in the life of a Reagan, huh?”

Nicky giggles. “I guess. The boys were amazing, though, weren’t they?”

“Yes,” Eddie agrees, “And reckless and very, very lucky. Things could’ve gone way differently.”

“I know. And they know. But still.”

“But still. You were pretty amazing yourself, keeping calm and bringing the police there so fast.” She glances down at the logo on Nicky’s shirt. “You did that outfit proud, doing a wind sprint like that.”

“Oh, I – I’m not much of a runner. I just went on adrenaline.”

In fact, Eddie thinks, Nicky would make a good runner if she built up muscle and speed. She’s got the long, lean frame of her mother. “That’s pretty much how I got through training for my pre-Academy physical, “she tells her. “Like the hounds of hell were behind me. You do whatever it takes.”

“I wish I could’ve done more. Nobody ever taught me how to do what Jack did, though. I mean, Uncle Danny and Uncle Jamie taught me self-defense stuff before I went to college, but not, like, really fighting. They did for Jack and Sean. They still do. I don’t know if Mom stopped them or if it’s just cause I’m a girl and that’s their male bonding ritual.”

Eddie laughs aloud at that. “Oh, I doubt it’s cause you’re a girl. Your mom’s a pretty dirty fighter herself, from what I hear. I can’t speak for her, but I’m betting she’s just had enough fighting with her own family. You wanna learn to fight like a girl, Officer Walsh and I’ll bring you up to speed. We know some moves.”

“Cool!” Nicky says, and then a big yawn hits her in the ribs and she covers her mouth hastily. “Sorry. When are you guys getting up?”

“Probably seven. We’ve got to check in with Sarge and bring him up to speed before he gets busy.”

“’Cause of you and Uncle Jamie being involved in the thing last night?”

“Yup,” Eddie says, shortly, because there’s no way she’s going to open up a conversation with Nicky about potentially career-limiting, overly cozy online photos of herself and Jamie. “Gotta keep him in the loop.”

“All right. I’ll see you guys at breakfast.”

“Sleep well.”

“You, too.”

Nicky gives her another hug, this one impulsive and tight, and her lopsided Reagan grin flashes before she departs.

Which is nice, and Eddie feels a little glow at being so warmly accepted. It’s still a strange sensation to be hugged by someone young enough to be her own kid.

She powers down her laptop, crawls under the pristine white quilt, and feels sleep pulling her down into warm oblivion within minutes. Her last waking thought is of an old crumpled black and white photograph of her mother’s mother, Marija, as a teenager in Priejdor, standing with one delicately-shod foot on the wooden front step of her house, and a shotgun on her hip in case the _Ustaše_ came for her little brothers and sisters that day.

_Not on my watch_ , her eyes say.

_Not on mine, either_ , _Baba_ , Eddie thinks.

 

* * * * *

 

Squinting in the bright morning sun, still not quite awake, Jamie notes the presence of an additional car in the inn’s semi-circle drive.

Danny.

He must have set out in the dark of night to get to Montauk by seven o’clock, Jamie thinks. He wonders if Danny even slept.

“Morning, lazybones,” his brother greets him, at the door of the café, a coffee already in hand. He’s apparently introduced himself to Dianne and Harold, and Jack is sitting at a table looking frazzled. Danny doesn’t yell at his kids in public, but Jamie knows the power of a quiet, tightly controlled, what-were-you-thinking lecture at dawn.

“You drove,” Jamie remarks.

“Great detective work. Yes, I drove. Because I need to see my kids get home with _my own two eyes_ , with nothing crazy happening to them in the meantime.”

Jamie knows better than to take the bait. He gestures to the coffee maker and heads towards it.

Anger is Danny’s go-to when it comes to fearing for his family. It has been all along, way before Linda’s untimely death, before the kids came along. Afghanistan was a bitch and then some, and really did a number on Danny, even before Mom and Joe’s deaths sparked the survivor guilt that he and Danny and Erin all share.

He wishes Jack didn’t have to understand that about his own father.

“You should hear Dad and Pop,” Danny continues. “Have you checked your e-mail this morning? Lucky you for missing dinner today. They can’t figure out for the life of them if the boys should be grounded for breaking rules or given medals.”

“I can guess what one young lady would say about that,” Jamie replies.

“That’s about all that’s saving them from the grounding. They know – you _know_ better!” he glares at his eldest child and raises a hand a helpless gesture, “If things hadn’t turned out – “

“I know, Danny. I know. Sit down. Jack, where’s Sean at right now?”

“Showering. He’ll be here in a minute,” Jack says, marginally more relaxed now that Jamie is drawing some of Danny’s attention.

The door opens, but it’s Eddie and Nicky, not Sean, who wander in, all smiles, until they spot Danny and Jack faced off across the table.

“Uncle Danny!” Nicky says, instantly making her appeal, “Don’t blame the boys. Even the officers on scene said that Marjolaine would’ve been in real trouble without them. They saved her.”

Eddie moves smoothly over to the coffee machine to stand next to him. “Oh, boy, I hope you slept well,” she murmurs.

“Gonna be a long morning,” he says, by way of answer.

Out of sight of the others, he feels the pressure of her fingertips on his back, a slight scritch of reassurance and presence.

Sean stumbles in sleepily a few minutes later. He eyes his father with trepidation, and then looks at his brother, who seems to be sending him signals to say nothing. It’s wise advice. With everyone assembled, Jamie and Eddie do the talking, explaining every step of the saga.

When they come to the part about Sean sending an urgent text to Jack instead of Jamie, Danny holds his hand out for Sean’s phone. Sean hands it to him silently, and watches Danny.

“This is…” Danny clears his throat. “This is exactly right, kiddo. Nicky called 911 and went to meet the police. You knew that Central would take a couple of minutes to reach the security team on duty, but that Uncle Jamie was somewhere nearby. ”

“Except I got it,” Jack says quietly. “And there wasn’t any time to sort it out. It was all over by the time the local police turned up. Even before Uncle Jamie and Eddie got there. If we hadn’t jumped on him, he’d have gotten Marjolaine in his car. He wasn’t even twenty feet away. And she was too frozen to do anything.”

Danny takes a hard look at his eldest son. “You’re what, eighteen in a month?”

Jack nods.

“I was at Camp Lejeune with a rifle in my hand when I was barely nineteen,” Danny says. “So I gotta ask myself what’s really eating at me. And it’s not even that you both went against instructions, even though I’m pissed about that. I’m the one who taught you to fight, and to do just this sorta thing if the situation called for it, so what’s my problem? You made a good call. And you both got _damn lucky_ last night. I am so stinkin’ proud of you I could bust my suspenders. Your mother would be…” he breaks off and gathers himself for a long moment, and nobody interrupts. “Thing is, you scared the crap out of me, because one or both of you coulda gotten yourself badly hurt or worse, and _every damn day is going to feel like last night_ , once you’re out of the house. And that’s gonna happen in a few short months for you, and just a couple more years for Sean.”

“And that’s why you came out here?” Sean asks. It’s the first thing he’s said all morning.

“That’s why I came out here. Because Jamie and Eddie here will tell you, there’s a fine line between a good call and a disastrous one, even to the best cop around, and sometimes all the best training and instincts in the world can’t save you. Sometimes it’s just – ”

“In God’s hands,” says Jack.

Jamie, who has been standing next to Eddie with Nicky on the other side of him, as silent witnesses, feels a twist in his guts. Jack’s right, of course. And they’ve all, if they are honest, had more than enough of God playing toy soldiers with their family.

Except they _are_ soldiers. Even the kids. And that’s the price they pay for fighting the good fight.

He feels his understanding of his father and his grandpa take a disquieting leap. He can’t imagine what Eddie’s thinking right now.

 

* * * * *

 

Dianne, hearing the voices in the café take a more casual tone, diplomatically arrives with breakfast menus.

“We need to call Tony right away,” Eddie says, eyeing him intently.

“You want me to talk to him, too?” Danny asks. “You guys can’t be held responsible for all this. You weren’t even on duty, and the guard who was supposed to stop kids getting out the back door has been fired already.”

“No...no,” Jamie stalls. “Just want to straighten out any possible appearance issues ahead of time.”

“Oh, well, hey, if anyone’s gonna be upset, it should be me, and I’m just acting like a terrified dad, is all,” Danny presses, in a better mood now that he’s vented, and there’s food on the horizon.

“Oh, no,” Jamie waves a breezy hand. “Nothing major. We’ll just be a sec. Don’t wait breakfast for us.”

He and Eddie exchange as casual a glance as they can, and move off fast towards the passage door to the inn’s front desk area. Jamie can already hear the gears turning in Danny’s head.

“Okay,” Eddie says, in a hushed voice, once the door is closed behind them. “How’d you want to play this? D’you think he knows there’s photos of us up? Has he e-mailed you?”

“No…?” Jamie says, sliding his phone out of his jacket pocket to be sure. “Nope. Maybe it really is just an appearance issue.”

“Of course it is. Except it’s nothing we can control. Kids on social media, sharing festival photos, that’s all.”

“Until someone in the _actual_ media gets hold of the story, and starts looking for photos of distracted cops at the festival to bash on, and finds us instead. Looking like we’re getting all cozy instead of working.”

“Ugh. And if we tell Renzulli about us finally trying to let things fall into place, aren’t we basically saying they’re right? Even if we know better?”

He drops his head briefly and groans, “Hey, Sarge, we weren’t making eyes at each other on duty, even though it totally looks like it, but while we’re on the subject, please assign us to new partners so we can make all the eyes we want to at each other, and not have it be anyone else’s business?”

“I wish we could do this in person. But I’m just as glad we’re not,” Eddie sighs. From the look on her face, the knot in her stomach is about as tight as his.

“Eddie…”

He reaches out a hand, and she takes it, watching him curiously. “If you’re having daylight thoughts, or want to slow things down – ” she begins carefully, after a pause.

Oh, is that ever _not_ what he wants. But…

“That whole thing with Danny and the boys. Everything that went down last night. My whole family. Eddie, is this what you want to be part of? ‘Cause as different as I am in some ways, I’m just like them, too, and I can’t change it.”

“You think I don’t know that? Jamie. C’mon.”

“No, seriously – ”

“No, seriously.”

“You know I hate it when you do that,” he mumbles.

She cracks a smirk. Of course she knows. Because it snaps him out of whatever spin-cycle his thoughts are stuck in. She rolls her eyes like she’s been taking lessons from the kids, and comes in close, gripping the lapels of his jacket.

“Reagan,” she says, “I get it, okay? It just skipped a generation in mine. You should’ve met the _other_ grandmother I was named for. If we’re gonna make this call at all, we need to do it now.”

He looks down at her hands, which have sort of spread out over his chest, and back up again. “Copy that,” he says. There’s more to her words, clearly, but it’ll come out in good time.

She pats his chest with lingering fingertips and steps back.

They call Renzulli on Eddie’s phone, so as not to startle him, because calls from a Reagan before roll-call usually aren’t good news.

Renzulli says “uh huh” and “okay” about a dozen times as first Eddie, then Jamie, tells the saga of Marjolaine, Richard, Jack and Sean. Then they take turns explaining about the photographs and the rock venue that was loud enough that it was necessary to lean in and sort of yell at each other, which was silly enough that they couldn’t help laughing. And there’s maybe a photo that looks like he’s got his hand on her, which he did, but just to keep them moving through the packed crowd, really.

“So,” says Renzulli, eventually. “It’s another case with more Reagans than we really need in the middle of it, but what else is new? Are the kids caped crusaders, too, or just plain nuts?”

“Bit of both, probably,” Jamie replies. “Danny’s handling that. But about those photos.”

“Huh. Well, now, that’s gonna be an IAB thing, and not for nothin’, but I’m glad you called me first so I can get out ahead of it. They’re gonna have to do a full risk assessment, see if you might be compromised in any past operations you were both part of. And PR’s gonna have to be briefed, ‘cause you’re right, if the media gets wind of cute photos of the pair of you along with the abduction attempt, that’s it. No more undercover, and the media is going to have a field day with the NYPD running a dating service on the public dime and letting kids sneak out back doors and get snatched. Lucky for you I’ve known you both since day one.”

“Yeah, I know. You’ve had our backs right out of the Academy.”

“And don’t you forget it. I know I had my concerns, back in the day, but you’ve proved me wrong, time and again, and I’ve told people so.”

He closes his eyes and groans internally. He reaches out for Eddie’s hand, and she takes it without a pause.

“I was straight-up with you then, Tony, and I gotta be straight with you now. There’s another reason you’re our first call today. The timing sucks, I know, but, ah, we’ve been talking, and we both agree we need to, I mean, the last four years have been – ”

“Sarge. Hi. We need new partners.” Eddie says, grabbing his phone hand and pulling it towards her.

Tony is silent.

“Fucking kidding me?” he says, after a moment.

“Uh, no, Sarge. I was getting round to that,” Jamie says, eying Eddie with the mix of annoyance and admiration that seems to surround many of his daily interactions with her. There’s ripping off the Band-Aid, and then there’s incinerating it with a laser.

“So, you’re, like, what now? Dating? Coming clean and getting married finally? Oh, shit. Pregnant?”

“No! No, I mean, kind of. To the first. We need space to sort things out. And we want to do this right. So we’re telling you right now. Right away.”

There’s silence again.

“ _Right_ ,” Renzulli parrots him. “And even though you were off duty when the abduction attempt went down, there’s still photos of you two out there in uniform, looking all cute during your shift, but there was absolutely nothing going on with you, but there sort of is, or was, or something like that, somewhere in between?”

“It’s just photos of us being us, like we’ve always been,” Jamie protests, a little lamely. “There’s always been house talk, and it’s always been wrong about us. Seriously. It’s just now there might be a bit of traction to the rumor mill.”

“Harvard,” Renzulli gripes. “You always gotta find a loophole. I know, I know, it’s just the truth. Well, that’s great, and I’m happy for yous all, but now I gotta find the paperwork to split you two up, and find you new partners, and IAB is flat-out not gonna believe you haven’t been secretly shacked up for the last couple years, and you’re not here where I can yell at you and I haven’t even finished my first coffee yet.”

Eddie holds her hand out politely for the phone this time, and he hands it to her.

“Sarge? Eddie. We’re sorry about this mess. We didn’t want it to come down like this. We were gonna talk things out some more and then come see you in person tomorrow. This thing with the boys last night just kicked things into high gear. I know. Aw, Tony. I’m sorry. Yeah, we’re heading back late tonight and we’ll be there for 7:30 rollout tomorrow. What? No, I’m not gonna tell him that. Or that. Bye.”

“You were gonna take like an hour,” she tells him, pocketing her phone.

“What aren’t you going to tell me?”

“Nothing. He loves us and would do anything for us. And that’s the truth, Reagan. Whatever else he says.”

“IAB doesn’t love us. And they don’t care how useful we’ve been to them. If we’re compromised, they’re going to come down on us. Even if we’re trying to do everything honest and aboveboard.”

“Well. There’s nothing we can do about it from here, and we’re two hours away even if they call us back,” Eddie says, pragmatically. “We still got work to do today. Let’s go eat.”

He realizes then that Eddie, like him, is running on empty stomach and without coffee. That might not have been the smartest move, especially for Eddie, but it was most effective in speeding things up. Eddie’s impulsiveness has saved them more than once.

 

* * * * *

 

It feels as though they have the gift of a sliver of time before fallout hits. A partial morning of rest to consider and connect with their intentions, if not a day. As soon as it’s common knowledge that Renzulli is looking for new partners for her and Jamie, they’ll both be getting pelted with texts from multiple precincts as the news spreads. And then from Danny, who will demand to know why the hell they hadn’t told him when they were standing right in front of him. But not yet.

Jack and Sean haven’t been summoned to the local precinct to answer any further questions, and Danny decides they can deal with any further business by phone if they have to.

They all head out at once, Danny and the boys in Danny’s SUV, Nicky in Erin’s Forrester, and she and Jamie in Silver Belle. Nicky, driving two and a half hours alone for the first time, promises to text at least once from the road.

“At least I’ve got The Boots for company,” she says, holding up her CD.

Danny and the kids will all be back in time for afternoon Mass, and the rest of the family arranges to meet them there instead of their usual ten o’ clock service. The kids can’t wait to tell the others all the news, but Danny cautions them to let him break the story himself, first.

Eddie is relieved on Jamie’s behalf that he won’t be there to get grilled over dinner. Someone is bound to let out a comment about them, even innocently or kindly meant. Jamie is the world’s worst liar, and is always most sensitive when he’s working though something and wants privacy.

She and Jamie arrange with Dianne and Harold to stay at the inn again in three weeks’ time, during the jazz workshop weekend – “If we haven’t been too much trouble already.”

“Oh, nonsense,” Dianne flaps a dismissive hand, “It’s been a pleasure. We’re happy we could help. You come back anytime.”

Eddie isn’t sure, but she thinks Dianne’s eyes glint at her just a little in amusement. Maybe she saw them in the playground last night after all.

As she puts Silver Belle into gear, Dianne and Harold wave them off. She’s glad they’ll be back. She doesn’t know what form their relationship will have taken when they return, but the little inn has already become a cherished memory in among the drama of the weekend.

“You know what the best part is?” Jamie asks her.

“What?”

“This was _all your doing_ , us coming out here. You’re like the Pied Piper of Reagans.”

“Oh-h-h, you loved every minute of it. Admit it.”

“ _Almost_ every minute.”

 

* * * * *

 

It’s only nine thirty, and they’re not on shift until noon, but they decide to call on Sergeant Clare, to give her their side of the story. She’s surprised but pleased to see them, and waves them into her small but pristine office in the one-oh-eight. It matches her exactly: sparse but elegant, silver and blue, except for the heritage desk in old oak. Eddie suspects that Clare is pretty oaken on the inside, too, for all her prim neatness.

“I was going to call you next,” she tells them, “So you’ve saved me the trouble. I wanted to thank you for all you did last night, and to offer you some time off today in lieu of technically working double overtime last night.”

She and Jamie share a look. “Ah – that’s very generous of you,” Jamie says. “We really just wanted to apologize if my niece and nephews were out of line. The two officers on duty were there less than a minute after we arrived. It was one of the Security crew that left the door unguarded, not your people.”

“And the girl would have been abducted before _anyone_ arrived, from what I understand, if your nephews hadn’t fought a much older man away from her. Not what we recommend, of course, but it was courageous and very timely. They were well taught. In this current media climate in particular,” she continues, looking at Eddie now, “I don’t think we can fault them for stepping in when the need arises.”

“No, ma’am, I agree,” Eddie replies.

“I can’t publicly recognize them for what they did,” Clare goes on, “Because we can’t encourage that sort of thing, either. Too much risk, and too many out there with delusions of superhero powers. But I would like all three of them to know that if they can, if they choose, be part of our summer Cadet Program at no charge. I may be assuming, but I rather think they’ve been raised to think of policing as a prospective career, yes?”

“Oh, yes,” Jamie says, “The jury’s still out, but they’ve all seriously considered it, off and on.”

“Good. We need them. I’ll reach out to their parents later. What would you suggest – twenty-four hours? What’s the Reagan cooling-off period?”

Clare’s eyes are twinkling. Eddie knew she had a twinkle in her. Jamie gives an appreciative laugh, and suggests that a single phone call to the Police Commissioner’s house just after Sunday dinner might be a good chance to catch everyone together and let the boys breathe easy overnight.

“Good,” says Clare, again. “Now, here’s my proposal for you: if you give me five hours at the festival site today, in plainclothes just as you are, I’ll have you signed off by five o’clock. Then you can get home in good time and get back to your usual schedules.”

She and Jamie share a quick glance, and agree right away. They can even get an early night in their own beds before what will certainly be a stressful Monday morning. And Jamie can still absent himself in good conscience from family dinner, and not feel emotionally crowded in.

“Ma’am, there’s just one thing we should tell you,” Eddie says. “This morning we, ah, we requested that our own Sergeant re-assign us to different partners. Technically we shouldn’t be working as partners anymore.”

“I’ve always thought that was a very silly and patriarchal rule,” Clare says, “Some partners can’t function both ways, of course. But those that can – well, they’re remarkable. Be that as it may…” she stops. “Did you say you just spoke to your Sergeant this morning about this?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Well, maybe I’m losing my edge,” says the Sergeant. “I knew you were loaned to us from the same house, of course, but I thought you’d been married for years.”

 

* * * * *


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...

_A/N: I came so close to getting this up to Christmas in time for actual real-time Christmas, but life has a way of happening! But fear not, said she, in case mighty dread has seized your troubled minds - Christmas is coming._

* * *

 

Nicky’s been on the highway for about thirty minutes, taking it easy in the slow lane and singing along with her new Boots CD, when the smaller whispering gears of her mind start catching hold. It’s been a strange twenty four hours, to say the least, and there’s a lot to process.

Uncle Jamie had cleared out of his room at the inn without comment, last night, except to say that he and the boys would be in the next door cabin. Nicky hadn’t given it much thought, after the dramatic events of the evening. Of course Eddie and Uncle Jamie had separate rooms. They were on a work trip. And of course Jamie and the boys would share one cabin, and she and Eddie the other. As far as her insanely extra-socially-normative family was concerned, she and the boys were still “the kids”, and women supervised girls and men supervised boys. The appearance of the thing demanded it.

Nicky suddenly thinks it entirely likely that Uncle Jamie used those family expectations as a smokescreen to avoid any other questions. She’s reliably certain that he and Eddie had slept apart, that first night, though. Both beds were slept in and remade, neat but no longer hotel-perfect. Now she remembers some curious phrases that Uncle Jamie used when talking to Erin and Uncle Danny the night before.

_“We’ll find a motel or something and make sure everyone gets a good night’s sleep before we send them back. Eddie and I are back on shift out here tomorrow anyway.”_

That didn’t sound anything like “We’ll just call the Inn we’re already staying at, and ask if they can put up three more people overnight.”

Which could only mean that Eddie and Uncle Jamie hadn’t told anyone they were staying there. Not even their CO. They must have snuck out of town without telling anyone. Maybe to get a decent sleep before their early morning shift, or maybe, just maybe, for some time together outside of the city?

She hopes so. They deserve it.

Uncle Danny certainly hadn’t said anything about it, except that they were lucky to find a touristy place open in winter. _For sure_ he couldn’t have resisted making a crack about it if he knew.

Nicky realizes, with a breathless laugh to herself, that not even Sean and Jack know. There’s no way Uncle Danny wouldn’t have sniffed that out of them. They only saw their cabin once Uncle Jamie had carried his bag over, and all three of them had settled in at the same time.

Oh, this is too good.

Not that she’s going to bust anyone. It’s just nice to have an actual secret, in a family like theirs. Even a little one. She sort of wants them to know that she knows, anyway, and that they can trust her. Which means she better earn it. She’s promised to text once or twice from the road, and it’s as good an excuse as any.

First she needs more caffeine. Instead of taking the exit to the Expressway, she switches lanes and heads towards the retail plaza just before the exit. Soon equipped with a hazelnut latté from Starbucks, she sits in the warm car in the deserted parking lot, and gets out her phone.

_Hey, Uncle J. All is well. Stopping for coffee and then back on the road._

_Good show. Text when you get home, ok?_

_Not going to say anything about the inn, btw. Uncle D and Mom don’t know, right?_

There’s a longer pause this time. She grins and sips her latté.

_No, kiddo, they don’t._

_They don’t need to._ She types back. _But if it comes up?_

_Tell the truth if anyone asks._

_Sin of omission meanwhile?_

_For the best. Too many questions, even if simple answer. OK?_

She grins wider.

_You got it. Have a good day out there. It was really fun, even with the craziness._

_One less bad guy off the street is always good. Eddie says you snore. Drive safe._

_Yeah, right. XOXO_

Nicky puts her phone away, and spends a minute or two thinking and warming her mittened hands around her latté. In Uncle Jamie terms, asking her to keep silent unless asked a direct question is a big deal. Something’s changed, or changing. There’s definitely no simple answer.

She thinks of Eddie and Uncle Jamie together over the years, how they move in step, how they’ve picked up on each other’s facial expressions and phrases. How they glance at each other and check in, somehow, when they don’t think anybody’s looking. How quick they are to point out that they’re spending their off-duty days together because of extra work on cases or personal favours – even driving out to see her and Chrissie at school, which they didn’t have to do. How everyone can tell when they’re fighting or stressed out, and when they make up, just by looking at one of them, like when her parents were still married, or Uncle Danny with Aunt Linda, and when Uncle Jamie was with Sydney.

 _Reagans don’t have a good track record with relationships_ , she thinks. Maybe that’s part of why Eddie and Uncle Jamie are always such easy marks for family gossip, besides Jamie’s legendary secrecy and sputtering protests at being teased. Everyone would be so happy if they actually got together, and the family could use a few more functional romances.

She knows how her family jumps on the smallest hint of interesting news, and how claustrophobic it can be to try to let a relationship develop naturally in that setting. The best she can do for Uncle Jamie and Eddie is to give them as much space as possible from the rest of the family. What she needs is a diversion.

She reaches into the front seat console for the cardboard cover from The Boots’ CD, and re-reads the hastily-scrawled message from Dale, the shaggy redheaded keyboardist, on the inside.

“Nicky, great to meet you. Next NYC gig is Brooklyn, Jan 5. Let me know if you can make it and I’ll get you on the comp list.”

He’s left her his number. She’s been thinking about it, and him, off and on since last night. And then, as she remembers teasing Jack about Tasha, which she still feels a bit squirmy about, she feels her decision fall into place.

Her family may sense when there’s a secret brewing under their noses, but maybe she can pull off a bait-and-switch. Get the heat off Eddie and Uncle Jamie, take one for Team Cousins, _and_ get to hang out with Dale again.

 

* * * * *

 

They’re stationed outside the small white-painted church building again this afternoon, walking the quartz-chip path around the building and side parking lot. Pale winter sun shines directly overhead on ground frost and the steaming breaths of a couple hundred people lined up at the door, with the scent of hot coffee rising in the air. Inside, a gospel jazz group is rousing up the crowd with mellow, upbeat Christmas carols – the first Christmas concert of the season, out here. Clusters of people, all smiles and greetings, mill around waiting for friends. It’s a perfect day to wind down a winter music weekend.

The serenity of the scene is lost on Jamie and Eddie. It's a good thing they're moving, because they can’t stay still. Their steps are tight and precise with a level of nervous tension they don’t usually exhibit. Waiting is always the worst.

Jamie slides his phone into the inside pocket of his leather jacket and sighs. Nicky’s a good kid. She’s trying to help, though she’s clearly dying of curiosity. She reminds him of Erin more and more every day – except Erin would have gone further, and demanded to know what his intentions were, and how he was planning to deal with the family. He wonders whether Nicky will go lawyer or cop. It’s pretty clear it’ll be one or the other for her. Or maybe both, like him.

“What was that about?” Eddie asks him, catching his expression. He has to smile at her, hunched against the cold. Her usual jeans and suede jacket are not doing it for her in this weather, even with her thick green turtleneck underneath. She’d be warmer under the layers of her uniform and winter duty coat and cap, but she jumped at the chance to stay in her familiar second skin. Another circuit of the church and main venue, and they’ll swap with one of the indoor teams. Staying busy today is a good thing.

“Nicky. She’s fine, but I think I just sent her into the lion’s den.”

Eddie hums a note of acknowledgement. “I wondered. Not much escapes that one. Any other calls yet?”

“Not yet, but it’s early still.”

“No regrets?”

He catches himself about to take her chilly little hand. It feels so natural already, but they’re still on duty. They’re moving forward, and every step takes them deeper into unknown territory. Everyone around them is trained to demand answers they don’t have yet.

All he knows for sure is that since Eddie, his entire concept of loving another human being has undergone a transformation. They’ve had an alchemical effect on one another that’s taken this long to etch away the base metal from the gold underneath. No wonder they couldn’t be certain if it was real. It had been in the process of becoming, all along.

This creation of theirs, this thing between them, feels exposed and vulnerable, now that it’s out of its shell, and he wishes they could spend a whole week out here, away from everyone else. The constant background thrum of family speculation and office gossip is anathema to them both. He’s a naturally private person, and Eddie cares so intensely about her workplace reputation. It would almost be easier if they really were hiding the passionate affair they’ve been suspected of having all along. They wouldn’t have to convince anyone they weren’t lying about it.

…although Eddie probably overestimated that they’d have held off for even ten seconds after getting back to their cabin last night, if things hadn’t blown up. He’s pretty sure they were about to start seriously baiting each other, the way they do. For real, now that they’ve decided to erase the line as they go. Driving each other crazy in public just with words and glances, seeing how far they can push each other. And they wouldn’t have stopped, he knows. They’d have ended up tumbling onto his bed or hers as soon as the door closed behind them. God knows they’ve ended up near that line often enough, if they’re finally being honest, on more than a few lonely nights over the years.

“No regrets,” he says, with a small sideways grin. “But I miss my old partner already.”

“Still got today.”

“Yup.”

“It’s going to be fine,” she tells him, softly.

“I know. I just wish the other shoe would drop. You think maybe I should just call Dad now and let Nicky off the hook?”

“Let Tony do his job first, with IAB and sorting out where he wants to put us,” Eddie says, sensibly. “You don’t want to go to your dad with incomplete information.”

“Or Danny.”                                                         

“Oof. Or Danny. Did I mention how much I don’t mind being an only child?”

“You could’ve used a big sister to keep you in line.”

“Not a big brother?”

“Nah, you’d never listen to a big brother. You’d be too busy trying to beat ‘em at everything.”

“Eh, you’re probably right,” she shrugs. “Oh, God. What if I end up with a female partner who wants to be all sistery? That’s so not me.”

“Could be worse. Baez is like a big sister to all the younger women in the five-four.”

“Yeah, but she’s Baez. She’s going to end up Rabbi to all the women in the house.” She regards him for a moment, thinking. “What about Erin? She seems more whiskey session than girls’ wine night.”

“Totally. Linda was always the sistery one. They were a good balance. Erin’s more of a big-picture big sister. One-woman crusade with a social conscience.”

“I get that,” Eddie says. “You’re not scared of Erin and me drinking together? Because it’s going to happen, and soon.”

“Nah. You both know you’ll end up in hospital if you try to out-drink each other, and I kinda want to see what plans for world domination you come up with in the meantime.”

The grin he gets from Eddie is enough to make him forget the cold. He realizes he’s staring a little, dazzled by the mischief in her eyes and the sunlight on her lashes. She pinks up in response and gives him a look under those lashes that makes him feel like a teenager, and a way cooler one than he ever was. He’d never have considered asking out the cutest, toughest, smartest girl in his class. He might have pined from afar, but told himself that that was unrealistic.

If only he could have assured his sixteen year old self to sit tight and wait it out – that in four short years, he’d have gained a couple more inches, carried himself with a physical confidence that surprised even him, and spent his Saturday nights pushing technically-clothed making out to the limits with his sweet, brilliant girlfriend in the less-visited stacks of Cabot Library.

If only he could have known, after resigning himself to never meeting anyone who got him quite like Sydney, that Hurricane Eddie would be dropped on his doorstep, take it or leave it. And he’d resisted that pull and spin for so long, knowing that everything would change, for both of them. How could he ask a force of nature like Eddie to stay still? How could he be sure he wouldn’t get flayed to the core?

Yet here they are.

“Stop it,” she murmurs. “Unless you’ve got some actual action to go with that look.”

“What look?”

“Reagan!” she warns, exasperated. “Ugh, how much longer are we gonna be left hanging?” she sighs, breaking the spell before one of them does or says something else they shouldn’t, while on patrol. “I just want to know how deep in shit we are, before we get home.”

“Three hours left on shift. If we haven’t heard from Tony or IAB or anyone by then, I think we can assume there’s nothing bad enough to call us in over, and we’ll just get new assignments in the morning. Nothing but high level stuff gets worked out on Sunday afternoons.”

“I hate the waiting.”

He leans way into her space, close enough to feel the warmth of her. “Making _you_ wait’s sure fun,” he murmurs into her ear. She huffs and shoves him away, which was his intent all along.

“In your dreams, Reagan.”

“Wouldn’t you – ”

Eddie’s phone chimes an e-mail warning then, just as his buzzes in his pocket. They stop in their tracks and stare at each other, not smiling anymore. Eddie reaches for her site radio, still holding his gaze.

“Janko to Command. Reagan and I are going on a fifteen minute coffee break. Nothing to report, it’s all nice and boring out here.”

“Ten-four, Janko. You can relieve Wong at the security table when you come back.”

“Copy that.”

He grabs her hand, and they head for the side door and the empty office inside.

 

* * * * *

To: Jamie REAGAN, Edit JANKO  
From: Anthony RENZULLI  
Date: December 3, 2017  
Re: FWD: Conduct Inquiry

_"Jamie, Eddie:_

_Forwarding this for your information. We’ll talk after roll call. You will both remain on active duty tomorrow, but I’m going to keep you around the house in case they send a live human being to interview you. You did right to call first thing. I’m not making any announcements about new partner assignments until Monday morning briefing. The two of you have always done great work, and I want you to know I got your backs. I hope things work out for you._

_I saw a couple of those photos. Pretty cute._

_Sincerely,_

_Tony”_

 

(“You see?” Eddie nudges him with her elbow, as they stand reading off her phone side by side. “I told you he loves us.”)

 

To: Anthony RENZULLI  
From: Gerald FOSTER  
Date: December 3, 2017  
Re: Conduct Inquiry

_"Sir,_

_I am in receipt of your memo regarding Officers Reagan J 60528 and Janko E 68921 and the existing photographs of them. As you indicate, there are two areas of concern: the potential identification of the officers by contacts made while working undercover, and possible inappropriate behavior between partners._

_Our Social Media team has forwarded three photographs in particular that have appeared repeatedly online. They appear detailed enough to identify the officers. The officers’ prior undercover work will be reviewed to assess the risk posed to them and any of their informants. I must stress that while we cannot prevent citizens taking photographs at public events, allowing two officers with a history of undercover work to participate in what was essentially a public relations visibility event was perhaps unwise. We cannot afford to be cavalier with such assets._

_As to the conduct concerns raised by these photographs, that will require a second investigation. I request both officers be available for interview tomorrow, Monday 4 December, by phone or in person. I suggest that they not be reassigned until this inquiry is closed, to prevent any appearance of intentional obfuscation of events. This is going to take enough sorting out._

_Sincerely,_

_Sgt. Foster”_

“Well,” Jamie says, leaning back against the wooden office desk and crossing his arms, “That tells us not much of anything except IAB saw fit to have the techs look us up online on a Sunday, and arrange to come interview us. And that Tony’s not completely pissed.”

Eddie pockets her phone. She scoots her bum up onto the desk and sits with one foot swinging, the way she does when she’s thinking hard.

“That’s something. I care more about that than IAB, to be honest. I mean, what can they do, split us up? We’ve done that. Suspend us? Maybe, but not unless someone out there completely misinterprets our involvement in the Beattie case and makes a big thing of it. We should do something nice for Sarge. After this is all over. The last thing we need is for IAB to think we’re bribing the boss.”

“I bet he could make a box of cannoli disappear before IAB sees ‘em.”

“There is that.”

“So we’re still partners, until tomorrow morning. And we still don’t know if we’re in any sort of actual trouble.”

“And since Tony hasn’t made any announcements, nobody in your family will hear anything until tomorrow, either, unless the kids spill that we’ve been out here all weekend.”

“I think only Nicky figured it out, and she’s not going to say anything.”

“We’re basically stuck in limbo, and can’t even bitch about it to anyone.”

“Yeah.” He blows out a breath. “Which sucks. I don’t like not knowing what I need to be planning for at work. And I feel like it puts everything with us on hold, too. This Sergeant Foster is right. If we’re split up as partners right away, in the middle of all this, it’ll look even worse to anyone asking questions later. And there’s no way to know how long this is all going to take.”

“Acting in good faith is why Tony’s taking our side,” Eddie agrees. “Going to him right away saved our asses.”

“At least if IAB asks around, the entire house can honestly say we’ve always acted like we do, and it’s never been more than two friends keeping each other going.”

“Except it’s always been more than that, and we’re finally owning up to it,” Eddie reminds him. She hops off the desk and stands leaning into him. “But I guess that better stay between us a big longer. For now.”

“I just – ” He opens his arms, and she steps closer willingly, leaning her forehead against his chest and sliding her hands under his jacket where it’s warm. Linking his fingers in the small of her back, he rests his cheek against her soft hair, and sighs. “I know you’re what you’re gonna say, Eddie. But I don’t want to have to lie to anyone. We’re worth taking a little more time over to do it right.”

“Yeah, yeah, you big ol' Boy Scout.”

“Eagle Scout.”

“Whatever,” she grumbles, “When you’re right, you’re right. I don’t want anything sticking to my record, either.”

“But here’s the thing.”

“What?”

“They can’t stop us feeling. Or thinking. That’s nobody else’s business.”

“That is true.”

Oh, God, that softness in her eyes when she smiles at him like that…

“We’re in here,” he goes on.

“Yes...”

“And nobody even knows where we are right now. Nobody saw us come in. We’re basically in a parallel universe. Nothing that happens in here has any effect on the world out there.”

“You think that’d stand up in Court, Counselor?”

“And by my watch, we have six minutes left of coffee break.”

“Ohh. I get it. You wanna go upstairs and get a coffee?” Eddie grins up at him, her palms sliding up his chest in a way that sends tingles deep into the very core of him, right through his shirt and sweater and leather jacket.

“No,” the word rumbles out of him.

“You wanna kiss me in Church?” she smiles up at him in pretend wide-eyed shock. “Jamie Reagan! And risk having to lie?”

“I’ll go to Confession if I lose sleep over it,” he says. “Anyway, it isn’t a church anymore. C’mere.”

His fingers catch the golden tumble of her hair as she stands on tiptoe and tips her head back, already a little short of breath and laughing as his mouth finds hers, jealously stealing what time they can from the world. She’s warm and pliant in his arms, pressing closer, and her kisses are so sweet, so deliciously greedy that he knows with utter certainty that he’s kissing the real Eddie, the one who hides underneath all the bravado and bluster. The one who’ll be waiting there, in the world where things matter, if they can be patient just a little while longer.

He lets his hands drift slowly down her back, and then tugs her hips up against him, and he feels her breath turns to excited little pants as she opens her mouth to him. He takes everything she's offering and then some, and oh, God, she moans into it almost despite herself, sending him nearly out of his head. He pulls back to drag in a breath, just enough to get by, and takes her mouth again with an urgency she meets with her own, deeper and deeper. It's got to end soon, but not with her clutching his jacket to keep herself upright, making those sounds that he desperately needs more of. Just for a flicker of an instant he imagines sliding his hand down into her jeans to take care of her, but the very thought sends such a dizzying bolt of hunger through him that he knows they have to stop, now.

A shiver ripples through him as he releases his grip, his nerves firing all over. He holds her loosely, letting her lean against him just as he's propped up against the desk, none too steady.

"That much, huh?" she manages to gasp, with a short huff of laughter.

"That much," he whispers against her mouth, low and harsh.

“Glory, Glory, Gloria,” sings the choir, in the old Sanctuary overhead.

 

* * * * *

 

Just like a real case interrogation, they’ve told the story three times from beginning to end, and Dad and Grandpa and Aunt Erin have double-checked their details and corroborated their evidence multiple times, even passing around Sean’s and his cellphones. Sean’s message about Marjolaine being dragged away, that came to him instead of Uncle Jamie, has been scrutinized by everyone, even before dinner.

During dinner, the interrogation eases back and becomes more of an informal interview.

“You remembered the family emergency code under that much pressure,” Pop says proudly, his eyes crinkling at Sean as he passes the salad. “Well done.”

“I mean, we’ve pretty well had it programmed into us since we got our own phones,” Sean mumbles, pleased.

“Yeah, and that’s why you remembered it when you needed it,” says Dad. “Reinforcement and practice. Muscle memory.”

Starting an emergency text with “911 SOS” is Reagan-speak for “I’m not being held hostage, I’m able to text with my own hands, but I need you here, now, and 911 is the next call”. The rest of the message is supposed to be brief and contain only critical information. If the code is the entirety of the message, the sender can be sure that the signal will be triangulated and pinged in short order.

 _Life With Father is slightly different with NYPD and military dads heading up multiple generations_ , Jack thinks.

On the long drive home, Dad had seemed like his old self, cracking jokes and issuing completely over the top Marine commands when they made a pit stop. With everyone safe under his eyes, Dad can relax, even congratulate them both on making a good call. The only dim spot of the entire drive was when he bought them chocolate bars for the last leg home, and started to say , “Don’t tell Mom I got you guys – ”

Jack was on the verge of automatically promising, “We won’t,” and then it hit. And then it _really_ hit, with all the lights displays and store windows as they got closer to the city.

_First Christmas without Mom._

They’d walked back to the car in silence, the three of them. Mom and Dad had always been such a contrast that they were predictable, balanced even in the things they disagreed upon. But now it’s just them. They’ll be at Grandpa’s for dinner, as always, and Aunt Erin and Pop will try to copy Mom’s special Christmas recipes, but Mom won’t be there.

None of the others have mentioned Christmas dinner or Midnight Mass, but he and Sean keep catching each other’s eyes across the table. They know. Then Nicky intercepts a look. First she smiles, proud of them both and still hyped up on the whole abduction event, but then she takes another look, and she gets it, flicking a glance to where Mom used to sit. She nods very slightly, so that not even Aunt Erin sees it. But Dad does.

“Boys?” he asks, during a lull in the conversation. “Something going on?”

“Not really,” Jack replies, slicing into his pork roast. “Just…Mom. Imagine what she’d say about all this.”

Knives and forks fall silent for a moment. They’re getting used to this kind of conversation stopper, as someone invokes Mom’s presence during events like school uniform fittings and Thanksgiving football scrums in the backyard. There’s usually a sombre pause afterwards. But something weird happens this time.

The thought of Mom hearing about he and Sean chasing down a bad guy in the process of abducting a girl their age suddenly hits him as darkly hilarious, and he hastily stuffs some dinner into his mouth. It’s too late. He can’t help but see his mother’s expression and hear Dad’s voice trying to reassure her, and Mom spluttering that they’re only kids and they shouldn’t be playing cops, but then turning to hug them tight before yelling some more…

He grabs his napkin and lets out a helpless guffaw along with some mashed potato that he didn’t manage to swallow in time. He turns scarlet with an awful combination of embarrassment and shame and oh, God, it’s too good, and Mom would eventually see the funny side, too, and…

“Just…Mom’s face!” he manages, between gales. “Sorry! I’m sorry, but she’d be all over the place – ”

Nicky gets it, and then Sean. The grownups look at them like they’ve all gone mad, before Aunt Erin shrugs and sips her wine and says, “Tension release?”

“In this family?” Dad retorts, and suddenly everyone’s losing it, one after another. It’s painful and good, somewhere between laughter and tears, and it’s taken all this time to get here.

“She’d be all, 'I’m never letting you out of my sight again!' one second and 'I’m making you lasagne!' the next,” splutters Sean. “ 'I’m telling all the neighbors you saved that girl and I’m so proud of you but you’re totally grounded!' ”

“Oh, man, she’d be wailin’ on me for raising you boys too tough one second, and raving about how great you turned out the next,” Dad manages, wiping his eyes, in laughter and in sorrow, but for once, not in grief.

“Well,” says Aunt Erin, as they settle down somewhat, “Clearly you all deserve Linda’s lasagne, and I happen to have the recipe, so count on that for next week.” She anticipates the mixed reaction from him and Sean, because she goes on, “I’ll make it here, and Jack and Sean can come early and help me, because I know it won’t really be the same as hers without them.”

“Me, too,” says Dad. “About time I learned to do more than just fry stuff up for the filling.” Dad’s latest kitchen experiments haven’t been half bad, and the family seems to approve of this plan.

“And Uncle Jamie will be back then,” Sean says, “He always has seconds of Mom’s lasagne.”

“He’s a growing boy,” Grandpa says complacently, as if Uncle Jamie isn’t inching closer to forty. “Plus, he and Eddie are still running around all day. They burn it off.”

“They sure do,” Sean agrees, “Eddie says she did twenty thousand steps in one day on security patrols, and that was before dinner.”

“Oh, I’m sure they keep each other running around,” Dad mutters, and Aunt Erin covers up a snort in another sip of wine.

“Though who’s running after who seems to depend on the day of the week,” she says.

“So guess what,” Nicky blurts out.

Aunt Erin swivels round and eyes her. “What? What’s so important all of a sudden?”

“Well – it’s just,” Nicky says, toying with her fork. “I might sort of meet up with one of the musicians we saw. When he’s playing here in January.”

“Musician?” Aunt Erin repeats.

“One of The Boots,” Nicky confesses. “He offered to get me into their next show for free, and I think he sort of wants to take me out.”

“Another recruit?” Pop asks, confused. “I thought you were done dating cops, young lady. Didn’t you want to be one instead?”

“No, I mean, it’s a band called _The Boots_ , not like, a new recruit. He’s the keyboardist.”

“No way!” Sean says, “The dude with the wild red hair?”

Grandpa’s grinning broadly. “Erin, I do believe your daughter wants to date a rocker. Hark, is that the sound of your chickens coming home to roost?”

“Dad,” Erin growls. “Nicky, tell us about this keyboardist.”

“His name’s Dale.”

“Last name and date of birth?” Grandpa and Dad ask in unison. Nicky rolls her eyes.

“I don’t know. It’s just a concert, maybe coffee or pizza after, that kind of thing. But yeah, he’s a musician, and you guys would really like his stuff, honest, it’s – ”

“I’m not sure that my _liking his music_ is necessarily a criterion for approving of you dating a part-time wannabe rocker,” Erin says, “But you’re twenty-one. There’s not much I can do.”

“It’s not necessarily a date,” Nicky fusses.

“Wait, was that what he wrote on your CD?” Sean asks eagerly, “He invited you to a gig as his guest?”

“Uh huh.”

“Sweet!” is Sean’s verdict.

“You like this Dale guy?” Dad asks Sean. “Got a good vibe off him?”

“Yeah, sure. He’s kind of dorky. I mean, he plays keyboards and I think he’s, like, a Physics major in college, but yeah. Pretty chill.”

“And you wouldn’t mind me dating a Physics major,” Nicky points out.

“With a ponytail and earring,” Sean adds.

“Ponytail?” Grandpa repeats, grinning again at Aunt Erin, whose face is resting in her hand. “Earring?”

“Nicky, you may as well go and enjoy watching this Dale and his band with my blessing, since your grandfather is already having too much fun with this.”

“What was the name of your ponytailed, chain-bedecked, studded-leather-pants rocker boyfriend again?” Grandpa asks, “Luther?”

“Lorcan, and he was a nice Irish Catholic boy, Dad.”

“With a double-neck bass and a mullet.”

Jack’s been all but silent during this unexpected swerve in the conversation, wondering what Nicky’s up to. He rewinds back to her first interjection, and it clicks into place.

Uncle Jamie and Eddie. Nicky’s in on it, too. Maybe she and Eddie talked last night, or maybe she figured something out on her own, but she’s trying to draw off the heat.

Smiling to himself, he makes sure to start talking again so that nobody tries to dig into his head next. He catches Nicky’s eyes and nods slightly, and she nods back. When they volunteer to take on dishes for the night, nobody seems to think anything of it.

They don’t need to say a word. But at least it’s okay to grin excitedly at each other, with the kitchen door closed.

 

* * * * *

 

She lets him drive the first stretch home, because she’s been doing all the driving, and she likes watching his hands on the steering wheel. She rolls her eyes at herself for being jealous of a car, but there it is: he handles Silver Belle with an attentive lightness of touch that’s different from the way he drives his Mustang, and it makes her a little buzzy. She never really un-buzzed after that electric kiss in the old church. She has a sudden flash of Jamie tinkering away under the hood of his car, his sleeves rolled up, maybe a bit streaky with oil and grime, maybe a bit hot and disheveled from the work, and she has to shake her head at herself.

It’s already dark, at five-thirty, and getting darker fast. The clouds are rolling in now. No more shooting stars, no more sitting in a secluded pullout with the top down and telling stories. Not for a while, anyway. She thinks back to just two days ago, when they talked about taking a long summer drive. She’s as certain as she’s ever been of anything that they will, but what happens in between now and then?

There are no streetlights along this section of the highway. Just headlights and taillights strung together like Christmas garlands in either direction, and bright cat’s-eyes marking the lanes in between. With the thick forests of national parks on either side of them, it feels like they’re flying easily through a maze of lights.

“Speaking of parallel universes,” she murmurs.

He smiles in the dark. She doesn’t have to explain.

“Music?” he asks.

He’s been thinking of their drive up here, too, she can tell. How the memory of dancing together last winter brought back every breathless touch and tease, their hands speaking a whole other language despite their words, and the bone-deep wrench at ending things just as they had a chance to begin.

 _What a difference two short days make_ , she thinks. Those memories of last year, and the cathartic bloodletting of old body-trauma last week could have left her raw and bruised and alone, but instead, Jamie was there, steadfast, right where she needed him to be. They were both keenly aware that there was a moment of possibility at hand, an opportunity to take if they chose. For once, they didn’t let it go by while they sat, silent and desperately wanting.

She flicks on the satellite radio to the same station they listened to on the way up.

_“—make the Yuletide gay,  
From now on, our troubles will be far away…”_

“Oh, I’ve always loved this one,” she sighs happily.

“Me too.”

“Hey,” she says, a thought striking her suddenly. “Christmas.”

“Yes…?” he looks over at her in brief confusion. Then: “Oh! Christmas.”

It’s been a long, long time since either of them had a special person to spend Christmas with. Jamie will always have his big family, and she’s not entertaining any visions of being invited to spend Christmas with them just yet, but it’ll be wonderful to have little things to plan and do together. Whether they get sent to different houses ( _don’t think that_ , she tells herself firmly) or assigned to different shift rotations, there will, at least, be a few hours here and there they can spend together.

“Jamie. Let’s go dancing again. Whatever else is going on.”

“Definitely.”

“And we’ll be back here in three weeks.”

“Mm hmm.” He slews a sideways look towards her and she giggles out loud. He doesn’t have to say another word. They’ll be back anyway, for work, and clearly they’re only going to need one bed at a time. But there’s a good chance they’ll be able to be together publicly and in good conscience. The thought sends a delightful stomach-flip of anticipation through her.

“What do you usually do?” she asks. “Christmas dinner, and I guess Midnight Mass, knowing your family?”

“Yeah, pretty much. We usually meet up for Mass and then either crash at Dad’s or come back to the house in the morning. When the kids were little, we used to all stay over at Dad’s the night before. Sometimes Linda’s niece Sophie came, too. Grandma would stay home and read them “A Christmas Carol” while the rest of us went to Mass. They’d be in sleeping bags around the tree, when we got back, and we’d take turns sneaking in and out with filled-up stockings. If they were really out cold, we’d put gifts from Santa under the tree, too, or we’d pretend to find them in sitting room in the morning. Packed house, totally chaotic, but so much fun. Mom and Linda were in charge of all the cooking, and we’d all have scheduled shifts in the kitchen to go in and help them. We’d just graze on snacks until the massive turkey binge. Two big turkeys and sides like you can’t believe. Usually everyone would stay that night, too. Dad and Grandpa wrangled Boxing Day brunch, then a bunch of police and military brass would stop by for a drink, and we’d all drift away at some point.”

“You couldn’t have been that old yourself.”

“Not really. I was, what, just seventeen when Erin had Nicky. Sean was born right when I was finishing my B.A., and he was the last arrival. Guess I’ve always been in between the generational layers.”

“Well, it seems to work. Those kids adore you.”

“Helps not being another Dad, that’s for sure. Jack especially, he could use a big brother.”

“He is so like you.”

“He looks and sounds almost exactly like Joe did before he went into serious training. It’s a bit creepy.”

“You think he’ll join up?” she asks. All three kids would make great prospects, she thinks, but Jack is something special. He’d be a great addition to the force, but she hopes he takes advantage of college first. He’s the type who commits entirely to everything he does, and if he becomes a cop before college, he’ll probably never go.

“He’s always going back and forth, but I think something’ll probably come along to settle it one way or another before long,” Jamie says. “Like me, as you say. Sean, though, that kid has military all over him. He's got the character. He needs the discipline, and to be kept too busy to get into trouble. I think ROTC’s a good bet for him, actually. He wants to go into Engineering, and that plus officer training would basically give him a career structure for life.”

“And Nicky?”

“Nicky…” he ponders that for a moment. “She’d be a great cop if she put her mind to suck it up and take orders. Honest, Eddie, I think you’ll be the first one to know what she decides to do. She’s looking for some solid advice, and she’s been hearing from family all her life. She needs some new input. I’m not sure she’s over that ride-along we brought her on, though. Maybe you’ll do better with that with just the two of you.”

“That actually sounds kind of fun.”

“She’s grown up into a pretty neat kid,” Jamie says. “What about you? What’s your favourite Christmas memory?”

He does not, she notes, ask her about her family’s Christmas traditions. He’s very tactfully trying to take her back before things went to hell.

“You remember I said the biggest problem was that they’re all good memories?”

“I do. I’m sorry if I overstepped.”

“No, no. But Christmas is a shining example of that. There was only Mom and Dad and me, but we did everything. The Nutcracker Ballet, skating outdoors, shopping trips like you wouldn’t believe. They hired professionals to do the tree and decorate the house, and hosted catered parties every other night. Christmas dinner was just another fancy party. And they made me feel like the princess in the middle of it all. You know how little girls all want to wake up and find a pony? I actually got the pony. Her name was Briar, and she was my show pony for four years till I outgrew her. And then at some point I clued into the whole capitalist wasteland of it all, and I said something, and it was like all the air went out of my father. All he wanted was to make sure I never wanted for anything.”

“I’m guessing you were off to college not long after that, anyway?”

“Not long. I came home for the holidays, and I noticed they’d stopped hosting all the parties, but we still went to the ballet or a Broadway show. And we’d usually have Christmas dinner in a nice restaurant instead.”

“Still sounds pretty great.”

“Oh, it was. I thought they were scaling back because of what I said about not wanting so much of the presents and spending money on each other, and wanting to spend more time together instead. And that’s how it worked out, but I didn’t know at the time that Dad’s business was starting to go under.”

“So I guess it’s just been you and your mom, lately?”

“Yeah, and Bradley, last three years. I guess…I mean, I haven’t actually seen Mom in person since I went home last Christmas. It’s really quiet out there, but they seem to like it. We watched _Casablanca_ and _It’s a Wonderful Life_.” She looks over at him. “No Midnight Mass, though.”

“I figured probably not.”

“We should probably talk about that at some point.”

“Probably.”

“You ever dated a non-Catholic?”

“Well, there was old Dana.” He grins lopsidedly. “She liked you, you know.”

“Oh, _Dana_. She was a real sweetheart,” Eddie grins back, “Whatever happened to her?”

“Married a corporate lawyer who’s trying to shame industries into accepting environmental standards.”

“Jamie! You converted her.”

“No, no. Maybe. I may have nudged her a little.”

“She was trying to impress you.”

“Well, she succeeded. She’s doing some good work out there herself. But I haven’t heard from her in a couple of years.”

“And the rest have all been good Catholic girls?” she teases.

“I guess, yeah. I wasn’t the type to put myself out there in high school, so I dated the girls I knew from school and church. Just happened to work out that my first college girlfriend was Catholic, and then I met Sydney. Who was more Catholic on the outside than the inside.”

“How’d you mean?”

“She was good at talking the talk. But she wasn’t one for getting her hands dirty or actually getting involved in hard issues. I don’t mean like she was all thoughts-and-prayers-are-the-answer, but she liked things kept neat and tidy and safe. Catholicism – mine anyway – is a lot of hard work and not getting complacent.”

“I do appreciate that about you. Wherever it comes from.”

“Thank you. That’s a very inclusive way of putting it.”

“Well, we didn’t have a lot of religion or faith in my family,” she says, in something of a rush. She’s on the atheistic edge of agnosticism herself, but the solid bulwark of the collective Reagan Catholicism makes her feel both a little uneasy, and fascinated that such ferociously bright people would consider themselves among the truly faithful. What, she wonders, do they find among the layers of myth and meaning, and all the contradictions within the scriptures themselves, to sustain their faith?

“You mentioned both your parents escaped when the religious persecution got bad.”

“Yeah. Only my mom ever told me some of what she actually remembers, but I’ve done some reading. I can’t imagine living through something so awful.”

“I, uh, I did some reading on that, too.”

“You did?”

“I wanted to know where you were coming from,” he says, “I mean, literally.”

“After the Serbian trafficking gig?”

“Yeah.”

“Huh,” she considers. “You never told me that. How come?”

“My family doesn’t do privacy. I wanted to leave you yours. And we weren’t…”

“We were kinda scratchy with each other back then.”

“Yeah. You know, I meant what I said. It wasn’t that I didn’t think you were ready for it. If I’d been in charge, I wouldn’t have approved the operation at all. Too many unknowns, even with the girls at risk."

“I know. Really. But we did pretty great.”

“We did. I think that's when I knew for sure we were solid.”

She smiles, but it soon drops. “Hey, Jamie.”

“Mm.”

“You know it was a radical nationalistic Catholic movement that was the behind the terrorism my parents were fleeing. When I say it was bad, Jamie...”

“The _Ustaše._ Yeah, I know.”

“Is it going to be an issue?” she asks, point-blank, because here in the dark, flying through the night in their parallel universe, she can feel her heart pounding and her stomach knot up with the importance of it all, and still ask these things.

“No,” he tells her, instantly.

“How do you know? Your family – ”

“Knows that good and bad people exist in every faith and branch of science.”

“That’s not the same as accepting someone from outside…”

It’s not that her courage fails her, exactly, but they’re nowhere near this yet.

Or are they? Jamie reaches over and takes her hand. He brings it to his lips and kisses her knuckles, and a shimmering tingle spreads out from his touch and makes her inhale swiftly.

“If they don’t, then it’s time they did. And if it’s me who has to make them see it, Eddie, _I’m game_.”

 

* * * * *

 

_There’s a child in her arms, and she’s not certain if it’s hers, but it’s certainly in her care and keeping. She’s got to find them shelter, and soon. It’s getting dark and the streetlamps have all gone out in the rising wind. The child isn’t crying, but is staring around with large blue eyes. It reaches up its arms to ask to be put down to walk. She’s reluctant. It’s cold and shoes are too expensive. Only the older children who are at work need shoes. The little ones, still in school, go barefoot like all the rest of the village._

_The little rickety houses, pieced together hastily of whatever wooden supports and boards can be salvaged, seem to melt away as she and the child walk past them. Every tiny picket-fenced front yard is the same, a few flowering shrubs in the corners that were too deeply rooted to clear out, and the rest given over to a few miserable vegetables. Cabbages and potatoes, swedes and parsnips. Not much else will grow in the rocky, poor ground, even with the night soil from the families that live within. Your body can’t shit out nutrients you can’t afford to eat in the first place._

_She’s wearing two cotton summer frocks and a cardigan sweater, one on top of the other, in hopes of retaining a little warmth, but it’s useless. The only warmth she feels is where the child presses against her. She hobbles along in too-tight summer slippers wrapped over and over with old-fashioned foot-cloths for warmth._

_They’re nearing a friendly house, she and the child. Maybe they can take shelter in the lee side of the house, just until the storm passes. There’s a light in the window. Someone is awake there._

_Then a face in the window, looking out, checking up and down the pounded-dirt road._

_That’s not the face of a friend. The house has been taken._

_She doesn’t know of any other safe houses left. Where can they go?_

_She looks down at the child. It wasn’t hers, but it is now. She can’t leave it. Even if it means making herself vulnerable, unable to move quickly, she can’t leave the child now. It’s as much a part of her as if she birthed it herself, like the one that is no longer._

_The child smiles and opens its mouth to speak. All that comes out is a creeping grey mist with sound hidden underneath it._

Eddie gasps and flips on to her back. Her heart is thumping hard and her face and chest are clammy with a cold sweat.

_What the hell?_

She blinks and rubs her face. Her tank top sticks to her uncomfortably, and she sits up in her bed, looking around at the familiar shapes of dresser and chair, mirror and nightstand.

It’s been a long time since she had anything like a nightmare, and she doesn’t remember ever having one like this. Of course she knows where she was supposed to be – clearly, her mental images of her grandmother Marija’s ordeals in Priejdor have been given new energy by the revelation that Jamie’s aware of them, too. But she didn’t think she was _that_ anxious about it.

That’s not why, though. It’s Monday morning. The day when everything changes.

She eases her legs out of bed and grimaces at the cold. It’s four in the morning, and she has to be up by six. She can’t count on getting back to sleep again, but at least she got to bed at a decent hour last night. After she dropped Jamie off at the station house to pick up his car from the compound and drive himself home, she’d come straight home with a quick stop for an Indian take-out dinner. Curry and the nine o’clock news proved to be a good sleeping aid in combination, and she was fast asleep half an hour later.

And now this.

She gives herself a shake and throws off the covers, letting the chill of the air do the rest of the job of waking her. She might as well call it a night and get up.

In a few minutes she’s parked on her couch with a cup of coffee and the television on mute. There’s been no mention of the abduction attempt in the news, which is a good thing. She wonders if Sergeant Clare withheld the release of any details to the media. She could get away with that, Eddie thinks, given that the only witnesses were a bunch of stoned teenagers, the victim, the suspect and those trying to intervene.

It would certainly help her and Jamie’s cause with IAB if there is next to no possibility of linking photos of them looking too friendly at the event with the arrest later on. But they can’t count on that, not yet.

She really doesn’t want another partner, she sighs to herself.

She flashes back to the dream-child in her arms, the one she didn’t give birth to herself, but picked up and became determined to care for. Does the adopted child represent a new partner, after the loss of the first? she wonders. An interloper and a burden at first, but soon a beloved responsibility? Perhaps.

She’s always thought that the idea of a ticking biological clock is a patriarchal myth, something that women are supposed to factor in to whatever career decisions they make, just in case they suddenly get overwhelmed with the need for a child. A silly and self-limiting concept. But tonight it slides into her mind as something of a puzzle to solve. How would she make that work out? What would she need to have in place for it feel like a good time to have a child?

The thought of physically carrying and giving birth to a child is something that she’s kept firmly at arm’s length her entire life. She’s never been the type that needed to be a mother to feel complete, and with the sense of physical power and connection she’s had with her body since she first started training for the pre-Academy physical aptitude test, she hasn’t wanted to change her relationship with it. She admits that despite the entire world lineage of female animals giving birth, the whole process and the pain and deeply personal fuss involved freaks her out.

Watching Little Eddie make his peaceful way into the world, and especially watching his mother recognize him as hers and fall headlong in love with him, has overlaid those thoughts at the weirdest times, ever since. Not just because Jamie seemed to be just as stricken by the idea – she always knew Jamie was destined to be a dad, some day – but that she’s come to realize that she can’t imagine being a mom with anyone but Jamie. And that that’s been true for a long time.

_She wants that._

The thought hits her right in the gut. Not right now, but sometime, and with Jamie. It’s not that she needs to be a mother, exactly. If she did, there are plenty of ways she could do that all on her own. But having a child, or children, with Jamie, would be a natural extension of the deepening of their relationship. She wouldn’t want to undertake parenthood with anyone else. And she has reason to believe that he feels the same way.

Of all the things to be thinking about before a day of IAB interviews about the propriety of their relationship…

She takes a sip of heavenly hot coffee and allows herself just a few minutes to curl up and really contemplate all this before setting her sights on the day ahead.

Erin’s the last Reagan mom left, a disquieting thought at the best of times. What does that mean? Does it mean anything except that the family has a tendency to run towards danger? But no, that can’t be right. Only Joe died in the line of duty. Linda died in a horrible, tragic accident. Jamie’s mother, Mary, died of cancer, and his grandmother Betty of heart failure and old age.

Is that a gap she wants to help fill? And need she always think of _being with Jamie_ as _joining the Reagan family_ , and not Jamie joining hers, such as it is? They’re such a strong force that it seems almost like an oath of allegiance instead of being in a relationship. It’s going to take all her strength of character to navigate being a decidedly non-Catholic appendage to the family and to go up against them if the need arises, as it does now and then in every family.

 _I need to get really drunk with Erin_ , she thinks, and decides that that’s the only conclusion she can come to today.

Time to get ready for a potential battle with IAB.

She sends a quick e-mail to Jamie, which won’t wake him up as a text or call would.

_Hey. Call me when you’re up. Power breakfast and strategy meeting._

He responds in two minutes: _I’m up. Pietro’s opens at 0530._

_See you there, partner._

 

* * * * *

 

“Good Monday morning, people. It’s a beautiful day in Manhattan and the holiday tourists are arriving. The mayor sends her thanks to those who were on duty at the Spirit of the Holidays Parade and tree-lighting yesterday. Out of a crowd of five thousand, only thirteen arrests for public intox, two fights, a buncha lost kids and one unrelated stabbing. The guy’s going to be fine, by the way, Carmody, and his wife says thanks for staying with the family at the hospital.”

“Pleasure, Sarge.”

Tony adjusts his glasses and does not look at Eddie and Jamie.

“Now, we got two of our people back from site-sec at the Montauk New Music Festival this weekend. Sergeant Clare sends her thanks to Twelve-D. What you all won’t know is that these two helped prevent an abduction in progress by a wanted repeat offender out of Jersey, who has tried to snatch young women on several previous occasions. This report has been kept off the news due to the fact that Reagan and Janko have a history of undercover work, and there is no danger to warn the public about. Right place, right time, right training, right instincts. That’s what it’s all about.”

He leads a small wave of applause, and watches his two lovebirds exchange a quick glance and shrug casually. It really isn’t that big a deal, as solid an arrest as it was. Cops go into every public space expecting something to happen, and it becomes natural to dive in when it does.

“Now that said, with the new year and a new budget coming down, we need to be prepared to make some changes, and reorganize our resources as best we can. We have six new recruits starting with us in February, so some of you will be taking on developmental partners again. I know, I know. We were all there once. The following officers will be assigned to Training Officer status or other deployments. They will work in the house until February and help clear the year-end paperwork backlog. They are: Cooper. Johnson. Reagan. O’Reilly. Bennington. Janko. Kilsby. Winpenny. That leaves your partners looking for someone else to dance with. You’ll get this in writing by close of day, but henceforth, Walsh, you’re with Addison. Congratulations, you’re now Twelve-Hotel. Lemire and Coughlin, Twelve-Sierra. Potimkin and Russell, Twelve-Lima. Each of these new teams and housemouses, come see me for ten minutes during today, please. Rest of you, go in peace, come home safe.”

He raises a hand in priestly benediction, feeling more aged as this winter settles in than he’s used to. The watch falls out of attention, chattering like schoolkids about their new assignments. It was quite a bombshell to drop, but it had to be done sooner or later. Teams need shaking up now and then, and he was able to preserve the partnerships that still have a lot to learn from each other, or who are simply riding out the last few years to retirement.

And Jamie and Eddie provided the perfect focal point to reorganize his teams, after all. He should have split them up years ago, but their work has always been reliable, and despite the constant house chatter, they’ve never crossed the line. In fact, part of the reason he’s certain they’ve never crossed it is because of how they act together. If they were having a hot affair, they’d be hiding it. Instead they’re out there every day, cracking jokes and reading each other’s thoughts and getting up in each other’s spaces and flirting in their own weird language after shift.

And then they called him to ‘fess up and do the right thing, requesting reassignment, and his heart blew right up like the Grinch at the end of the story. They called him. They returned every bit of the trust he’d placed in them.

“Oh, my God!” he hears Walsh say to Janko. “They split you guys up? After all this time? You both gonna take on newbies?”

“Aw, we knew it would happen one of these years,” Janko says, “We’ve talked about it. We sort of felt a change coming lately, anyway. Maybe it’s time. Anyway, Addison’s solid. You guys’ll do great.”

“He’s a bit of a flyboy,” Walsh opines, “I won’t be letting him drive all the time. Oh, look, here’s my new work hubby. Hey, Addison. Ready to roll?”

“Pardner, Ma’am,” Addison tips an imaginary ten-gallon hat to Walsh and Janko, and moseys off with Walsh as they head to the bullpen.

Tony, wading through the thinning ocean of his people, smiles as he approaches Janko.

“You and Reagan come see me,” he says. “I need to talk to you both about that thing.” Janko nods, understanding.

“That was menschy, Sarge,” she says, quietly. He pats her shoulder and heads for his office. If he’s timed it right, they should have a visitor to the house in ten minutes.

 

* * * * *

 

There’s no denying the fact that the pictures are, in fact, pretty cute. IAB’s found six of them, taken on Saturday when they were still in uniform. They look like they always do on duty, but they’ve been captured in static moments of levity, or when they happen to be leaning close and talking. Jamie wonders if he can get Nicky to do some sleuthing and grab some of them for him to keep.

Then there’s the shot taken just before they went off-shift. In fact, it could be argued they were already off-shift, having been released by Sergeant Clare, but before they signed off at the Security tent. But that’s not a hair Jamie wants to split just now. The look on Eddie’s face in the photograph – blissed out, as Erin put it – is causing the real Eddie to fidget beside him in her chair. Jamie’s hand, in the photo, is resting just under her collar as they walk out together, a gesture that comes naturally to them now and then, but is somewhat unusual for partners on the job. Actually, Eddie was almost certainly mid-blink, but in that instant she looks a little stoned and smiley. It’s just the new reality of a camera in every hand, these days.

Sergeant Foster, from IAB, doesn’t care about logical explanations. That’s not his job.

“So you were staying there both nights, and you expect me to believe you drove all the way out there to _get a good nights’ sleep_ before you started work?” Foster says, unimpressed.

“Exactly,” says Eddie, from her seat in one of Renzulli’s leather visitor chairs. Renzulli has put them both in his old worn, comfy chairs with the cracked brown seats, and placed Foster in the worst office chair they’ve got. It looks like special treatment, but it’s a nice bit of warfare on Renzulli’s part. That chair does not like to be sat in.

Eddie goes on: “We’d have had to leave home by five a.m. otherwise. We decided that driving out the night before would let us rest up properly for twelve hours of foot patrols. Here’s the reservation I made, with the names of the owners. Called them maybe an hour before we left town. If they didn’t have space, we’d just have left early instead.” She holds out her phone.

Foster leans forward, gingerly, and makes some notes on the yellow legal pad resting on his crossed knees. “Mm hm. I suppose you have some sort of evidence you actually used both rooms,” he says, sardonically.

They look at each other, and Jamie replies, “Actually, yes. Once we had the kids with us for the second night, my niece Nicky took the bed I’d slept in, so she could share the cabin with Officer Janko. Nicky knows both beds were slept in. We arrived at the inn at nine o’clock the night before, and we were out of the rooms by six thirty in the morning, ready for duty. Now if you want a minute by minute accounting, we can give it to you, separately or together, but we had showers, we had hot chocolate and talked until about ten, and then we both went to bed, alone. If you really want to call Dianne and have her hold the sheets for ALS screening, be my guest.”

Foster actually looks marginally human, with a tiny lift to his cheek. “Of course. Harvard Law.”

“Truth’s truth,” Jamie replies. “You want to know what we were talking about, we can piece that together, too, but you can check Eddie’s phone browser history and see we were looking up information about the festival sites.”

“And I was Facebooking, too,” Eddie adds. “That’s got time stamps.”

Foster knows they’re playing a game of chicken with the complete truth, but also that in the absence of recording devices in the rooms, there’s not much he can do. He returns to the matter at hand.

“We’ll accept that as a statement of fact,” he says, “Then, you tell me, you had a sudden change of heart during the second night, and decided you needed to request reassignment, first thing in the morning.”

“Yes, because while we hadn’t decided to get into a personal relationship, we were moving that way, and we hadn’t really had a chance to talk about it until this weekend,” Jamie says, as if this should all be elementary information. It’s certainly nothing new to Foster, especially since this is the second time through the whole story. “My sister informed us about the photographs. We didn’t know whether Sergeant Clare would keep the arrest out of the media, and we wanted to get out ahead of that, and to do right by Sergeant Renzulli. Then if the media came calling, saying we were distracted by each other and left my nephews to fend off an attacker, we’d have proof that we were doing two things as best we could: doing our job during the day, and being honest with our boss as soon as we’d decided the direction we wanted to go in.”

“Three things,” Eddie points out. “You forgot _getting to a crime scene in progress_ , while off duty, ahead of the uniformed officers who wouldn’t have had a chance to get there even if the kids’ calls all went to the right people. The security guard who left his post was the weak link that let Beattie drag Marjolaine to the back exit. Not us. And not the kids.”

“That’s great,” Foster says, “That’s just great. And you know what the headline will be if someone makes up one of those viral memes using one of those photos? ‘Police sweeties in love’ or ‘Your tax dollars at work’. And then some kid who was at that festival recognizes you – or worse, some contact you made undercover – and we’re all up shit creek.”

Foster sounds like he’s about to launch into a blow-by-blow exposition of some gory street scene, and Renzulli clears his throat. “Sergeant, you asked for all the undercover cases these two officers were part of. You’ll see I’ve put any photographs at the front of the folders. Have a look how different they look on the job. Not just their faces. Look at them. I agree with what you said yourself, sir. They’re a resource we can’t afford to waste.”

Jamie catches a flicker of triumph on Renzulli’s face. They hadn’t seen that play coming, and they should have. Instead of living under the shadow of being made as undercover officers – _send them properly undercover?_

He leans in and looks at the photos Renzulli is displaying. It’s true that they resemble their officer-selves, in their various undercover roles, but he hadn’t realized how deeply they inhabited those roles. Even as a partying couple in the drug bust a few months ago, they look like they might be cousins of themselves, perhaps. He looks like a bulky, angry frat-boy gym rat, and Eddie looks tiny and frail next to him, uncertain of herself. You wouldn’t even match those body shapes with their actual selves.

“Now Janko here is maybe a year away from a recommendation to make Detective, with a specialty in undercover work,” Renzulli goes on, as Eddie blinks in surprise, “And Reagan, well, you know Reagan. He says he’s here to stay, but I’ll eat my hat if he doesn’t sit the Sergeant’s exam or gets his shield once Janko moves on. So Foster, here’s my proposal. You’ve heard what these two have to say for themselves. I believe them. How many other partners do you know who’d be so god-damned conscientious about trying to get together? Sergeant Clare is not anxious to have it spread around that her own officers got shown up by the Commissioner’s grandkids. So why not let the Undercover unit take these two off my hands full-time for six months to a year, let them do what they want on their own time, and see what turns up online after that. The kind of danger you’re talking about is so unlikely that these two would have to personally piss off a major player with financing and IT resources like I can’t imagine.”

“That’s my job, to do the imagining,” Foster replies drily. “Anything that might possibly reflect badly on the NYPD or the conduct of its membership is what I get paid to imagine.”

“More than me, no doubt,” Renzulli says, and sits back with a grin like Jamie hasn’t seen on him in quite some time. He’s enjoying this. Especially making he and Eddie sweat out all the details in front of him.

“Well.” Foster closes his legal pad into a leather folder, and folds his hands together on his knee. “I don’t have much choice but to believe the story these two officers have told. We are of course aware of Officer Reagan’s somewhat inventive use of police powers while working previous undercover operations. If the unit is prepared to take him on assignment and deal with whatever these two have going on, I can shove this in a drawer for a year. But the first twitch of the needle into the red, Officers, and I’ll be down here again.”

Foster does, however, shake hands with both of them as he leaves, and if Jamie isn’t fooling himself, he sees a desert-dry smirk deep in his cold pale eyes.

“I’ll give him needles,” Eddie mutters, “Bet he was talking about his dick, the way he was getting off on rattling us like that.”

“Oh, probably,” Jamie says, peaceably. He’s in too damn good a mood, which just gets Eddie’s back up further, and makes him grin harder. “Sarge. Undercover, really? I mean, you know we like that stuff, but will they want us?”

“Only been begging me for the last year and a half,” Renzulli says, grumbling. “I told ‘em I needed you here. And I do. I’ve got you until the spring shakeup when the Academy troop graduates, and then it’s time to fly. One year assignment, on paper, but you know as well as I do that anything can happen in a year.”

“Graduation day,” Eddie says, catching his eye. “Like we said.”

“Guess so,” Jamie says. “So, Tony. You know we really were being straight-up with you, right?”

“’Course I know. And I don’t want you thinking you gotta, you know, hold off whatever you got going on until February. I got paperwork here for you both to sign, stating that you requested reassignment of your own choice, not from any disciplinary action from me or anyone else. After that, you are no longer partners. You both just report to me and Lt. Shields, and believe me, we don’t wanna know the details. Here.”

He slides a folder across his desk and opens the cover.

Jamie looks over at his partner, and feels a sense of a chasm opening at his feet. But he also feels like he’s got a very large triple-checked parachute strapped to his back, and it’s Eddie.

He takes a pen out of the shirt pocket of his uniform, and clicks it open. As he pulls the folder towards him, Renzulli sniggers.

“I gotta say, kids,” he tells them, “This is not what I imagined witnessing you two signing.”

Eddie’s inhale has just a bit of a squeak in it.

 

* * *

_A/N #2: A heads-up, gentle readers, that we're heading into "M" territory from here on in. See you on the other side of the filter..._


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the darkest nights of the year, the stars seem very bright.
> 
> We are deep into "M" country, darlings. Grown adults doin' the do. And for real, a content warning for memories of wartime atrocities.

Eddie walks out of Tony’s office, stunned at how quickly everything has shifted. Her partnership with Jamie, her first NYPD team and formative introduction to life as a cop, is over. They both have new and intensely challenging assignments on the horizon. All the restrictions are off their relationship, and they’re going to have to decide what they actually want, instead of coasting blithely along with the Patrol Guide as their chaperon. She’s feeling a physical reaction as well as a whole cacophony of emotions.

This is the compromise they’ve made in order to keep their jobs and be together. And yes, she admits grudgingly, it’s time to move on. Tony’s right. They’ve been holding back developing their careers and not letting the department make use of them to their fullest potential.

Heading to the breakroom in need of both coffee and distance from curious colleagues, she thinks of Sergeant Clare’s words. Some couples might function even better as police teams because of their personal relationship. She’d like to think that, given the chance, she and Jamie would be among those couples. But relationships are messy and complicated, and policing demands harsh clarity and impersonal application of the law. There are plenty of good reasons, too, why couples do not work as partners, and are usually discouraged from working out of the same house. You cannot give special treatment to anyone. And you can’t have every collar demanding an investigation because you and your spouse might just have colluded in a cover-up.

She’s pouring a fresh carafe of water into the coffeemaker as Jamie catches up to her. He’s spent a few extra minutes talking with Tony. He leans heavily against the wall next to her at the counter, arms crossed, and blows out a slow breath he’s been holding all morning.

“So,” she says, a little flatly. “That went well.”

“Better than we expected. But yeah. Bit of a come-down after getting all wound up for a fight. And not riding with you hasn’t sunk in yet.”

“It sucks. You’re like my other sidearm, Reagan. My extra vest.”

“That’s it exactly.”

They share a soft look. “What’d you and Tony talk about?” she asks.

“That he should’ve split us up a long time ago. He’s never going to let any other partners like us stay together as long. And he warned me he doesn’t think it’s over with IAB. That was too easy.”

“IAB? Easy?” repeats Patimkin, coming into the break room with her thermos mug. “I saw Sergeant Frosty walking out of here. What’s got you two jammed up? Can I help?” she asks, unscrewing her mug to rinse it out at the sink.

Brenda Patimkin, Eddie thinks, has never forgiven herself for the way she treated them when she was IAB’s pet mole, in recompense for lying about her family’s criminal history on her original application. Touchingly grateful for Jamie’s patience with her early-career fumbles as well as her duplicity last year, she still tries to make it up to him whenever the opportunity arises.

Eddie nods once, as Jamie looks over at her. “Go ahead.”

Jamie waves Patimkin closer, and curious, she comes to stand with them in a huddle near the wall.

“We’re not gonna spread this around just yet, but we trust you,” he tells her quietly, under cover of the sound of coffee brewing. She flushes under her pale skin, not expecting that, and he goes on: “IAB came down on us ‘cause of some pictures of Eddie and me at the festival this weekend. You know we’ve worked undercover, so that’s always an issue with photos. We think we’ve got that sorted. But besides that, the photos make us look like we were more than just partners.”

“Oh, but everyone knows you’re not,” Patimkin says quickly. “There’s always talk when things are slow, but that’s just the way you guys are.”

Which is nice of her, but not entirely true. Most people are convinced by now of their relative innocence. There are a few in the house who staunchly believe she and Jamie have been hooking up all along. And there are others who merely shrug and assume that they, as some partners do, have filled in lonely gaps for each other when those bad nights come along, now and then. No reason for anyone to know they’ve both relied on each other for warmth and company and nothing else, a handful of times over the years.

“ _Used_ to be just talk,” Jamie replies. “But things have changed. We’re trying to give us a chance to make things work, for real. This is recent. Like, we just got split up as partners less than ten minutes ago recent. And we sorta jumped the gun trying to come clean and cover our asses. Foster wasn’t totally convinced, but he can’t prove anything other than we just decided to ask for reassignment two days ago.”

Patimkin’s mouth literally falls open as Jamie finishes. “And you – so you’re – really?”

“Pretty much,” Eddie murmurs, feeling more awkward than she expected, now that she’s finally admitting it at the office. Dating with a Reagan is no easy prospect.

“Oh, that’s so great!” Patimkin says, in an excited whisper. “But what about all the other partners being shuffled? Is that normal?”

“Yup. It happens,” Eddie says, “Sarge had other reasons to move things around, with the new recruits coming in, and everyone can do with fresh eyes now and then. Looks like Reagan and I are gonna be housemouses, taking non-emergency calls and chasing you guys down over paperwork until February, and then we’re being seconded to Undercover, for real.”

“At least they can make sure we don’t look like much our pictures,” Jamie says, trying for levity. “It’ll be nice to have a wardrobe and makeup budget.”

Patimkin’s thinking fast. “I see what you mean,” she says, “That’s way too easy for IAB to swallow so quickly. Keep an eye on Frosty. Let me get into it a bit, see if I can find anything out. You never know, I might hear something, if there’s any talk about you guys.”

“Don’t get yourself in any trouble,” Eddie cautions her, “Not on our account. You can’t afford that.”

“No, no. We always used to watch each other’s backs around him. He’s an asshole to the admin clerks. They know everything that goes on, and they’ll tell me if it’s not classified. Oh, that’s awesome news about you two. I’ll keep it super quiet. Except, I gotta say, it _took_ you long enough!”

 

* * * * *

 

They do trust Patimkin, and they know she hasn’t said a word, but everyone knows by lunchtime anyway. It’s highly irregular for two partners known to be excellent beat cops to be assigned to house duties and then to the Undercover unit together. People are quick to sift a few grains of truth out of this. They knew it would get around sooner or later, and that they just have to brazen it out.

It starts with Sergeant Maldonaldo, lurking at his booking desk.

“Hey, heartbreaker,” he greets her, as she arrives at the desk with an armload of old files for annual review. She catches a slight undercurrent in his tone, and decides to treat it as any other day. He thinks he’s a charmer, but he also thinks he’s owed a bit of charm in return, and has convinced himself that Eddie enjoys their little go-rounds. What gets him riled up more than anything is being dismissed as nothing special. But as the Desk Sergeant on her watch, he does have power over assigning and recording her collars, which means he has a certain amount of power over her eventual recommendation for Detective. So she has to tread lightly, and even play along a little.

She hates that. He’s not worth the emotional labor.

“Only yours, Sarge. These are due for updating by New Year’s. Just need checking for completeness, then date and initial, unless there’s new information that hasn’t been logged, or you make any follow-up calls. They go in the Records Room filing basket when you’re done.”

They’re old, solved and concluded files that haven’t yet reached their disposal dates, from back when Maldonaldo was a beat cop. The more serious the file, the longer they’re retained on the shelf before being sent to Archives or the secure shredder, and they all get reviewed each year until then. He knows the routine. She’s supposed to go over it verbally with each delivery she makes, so nobody can say they didn’t know the procedure. At this point, all he’s got left are some kid’s unwise arson attempt, a few assaults causing grievous bodily harm, a cold case murder and an abduction.

“So you’re giving me the orders now, that it?”

“Just doing my job.”

“Not all you’re doing, what I hear.”

She doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. There’s no point. His eyes are hard, his mouth tight with something beyond his usual pleasure at making her wait by his desk as long as he can.

“You shouldn’t believe all you hear.”

“Oh, I didn’t, not at first. But I got eyes, I see everything that happens around here. And I know Tony didn’t split you and your boy up for shits and giggles.”

“Whatever.” She turns to leave. He reaches out and catches her shoulder with two fingers. She shudders at the touch, and hates that he knows he’s well under any baseline for a complaint.

“You can get off your high horse any time now, Janko. You’re no different from all the rest, turns out.”

“What does that mean, exactly?” she presses, staring him down.

Oh, if only she could goad him into saying something really damning, in this public open space. But that’s as close as he’s going to get to calling her the things he wants to, and he knows it. And now he hates himself for letting her see what he really feels, about her and all the other female cops he does this with. Lovely. She used to be able to handle him with relative ease, and now she’s going to have to keep an eye on him for real. She wasn’t anything special to him, before, just another lady cop to stroke his ego with. But now that she and Jamie are known to be legit, she’s the One That Got Away, taken from him by the PC’s kid who got all the breaks in life.

Eddie hopes he’s self-aware enough not to damage his career over nursing a grudge that has no reason to exist, but she’s seen this play out and knows how uncomfortable it can get. If she’s lucky, she won’t be in the office much come February, and that’ll take care of it.

“Leave me the files. I’ll take care of them,” he tells her. His eyes do not match his congenial tone, and she walks away.

If Maldonaldo leaves her wanting to scrub down with carbolic soap, others find quiet ways of wishing her luck. Some seem to find genuine hope in the thought of two partners taking a chance at a relationship in an open and aboveboard way. A few eye her up and down like she’s got a big damn “A” on her chest instead of a badge. Eddie thinks back on Kelsey, who lashed out at her last year, feeling cornered by her own relationship with partner. Kelsey was transferred to the two-five after she and her partner got caught in another shouting match between lovers addicted to sparking emotional storms in each other. Eddie wonders how long it will be until Kelsey hears about this, and if she’ll keep on believing that Eddie sold herself out long ago, hiding behind the Reagans.

Kara Walsh, when Eddie pulls her into the women’s locker room to give her a more complete update, responds with a happy yell and a double high-five.

“I mean, if he didn’t sweep you off your feet soon, I was gonna start thinking maybe I had a chance,” Kara says. Eddie realizes she’s only partly teasing, and trusts Eddie to know a compliment when she hears one.

“Aw, Kara,” Eddie says. “Wanna make out in the lobby and watch the whole house catch fire? ‘Cause that sounds fun.”

“Might make Maldonaldo’s head explode,” Kara tells her. “I’m gonna miss you both. But for real, Ed: there’s always pushback when someone moves on. Some of these assholes are gonna call you every name they can think of, and tell each other that you landed on your feet and didn’t get your balls handed to you just ‘cause of Jamie and Big Daddy Reagan. Do. Not. Listen. Fuck ‘em all. You’ve worked your ass off, you’ve always stuck your neck out for those of us who really needed it, and you deserve each other.”

Eddie hugs her impulsively. “I know. I’ll get through it. You’re the best, Walsh.”

“And don’t you forget it. We on for fight night tomorrow?”

“Yup. Five o’clock class or the later one?”

“Five. You’ve got someone to get home to.”

“Copy that.”

The afternoon drags on a little, because neither she nor Jamie likes the spotlight, and because they really would like some alone-time. They haven’t made any firm plans tonight, though she suspects they might finally drag one another home from the bar and up to bed. This is all very new, and she’s not sure what’s going to happen. She knows what she’s hoping for.

Then around three o’clock, just as she’s starting to put tomorrow’s work in order and fill out her daily activity log, she hears a small cough from across the desk. She looks up.

Green eyes send her an impatient, hungry look that makes her stomach flip real hard, and her breath catches. His eyes slide down to her mouth and back, challengingly.

Well, alrighty then.

Talk about making eyes at each other. Not even teasing. Right there in uniform, in the middle of the office. She shifts in her chair and meets his gaze full-on for long quarter-seconds until surely someone’s got to notice …

Jamie blinks and nods politely, as if she’s just answered a question, and clears his throat again. She smiles to herself as she notes the rising flush in his cheeks. _Gotcha_ , she thinks.

“Gonna head out soon?” he asks casually.

“In a bit. Got some more to do.”

“Mm hm. About how long?”

“Say fifteen or twenty?”

“Mm hm.”

A minute later, he stands and twists his back either way to unkink it a little, wincing. They’re not used to sitting all day. “Right. I’m packing it in. See you later?”

“You go on, I’m just gonna finish up here. Catch you there.”

“Right. See you in a bit.”

She fiddles with papers and folders for fifteen minutes, changes out of uniform in three minutes flat, and then high-tails it across town to Jamie’s place at ten over the limit.

 

* * * * *

She can see his apartment door is ajar when she gets to the top of the stairs, and the hallway seems very long, but she’s practically skimming along the floor like she’s in a dream. He’s standing there waiting in the dimly-lit quiet, just in jeans and bare feet, and his eyes are dark and glittering. He reaches out and pulls her inside. Somewhere, a door clicks shut. She barely gets a gasp before their mouths are clashing together, his tongue finding hers as she lands against the wall, and a growl rattles from deep in his belly as her hands slide over his skin. She can’t fathom how much she needs this, needs to feel him under her hands. He’s panting and moving with her touches already, as their bodies find each other like missing halves.

He seems to find a coherent thought to hang onto, and his hands slide around her waist so he can keep walking them into the apartment. Her lips and teeth seeking for purchase under his tight jaw have him clutching and cursing in seconds. As they pass by the couch, he reaches up and turns her around by the shoulders, so he can slide her jacket down her arms. He tosses it onto the couch, and her long-sleeved tee follows quickly, and the pretty bra she put on with high hopes this morning, and then he’s working at the button of her jeans because this is no time to wait around. His fingers brushing the skin of her belly send rough shockwaves through her core. She turns around in his arms and he dives for her mouth again.

Scorching kisses are their only language now. He wills his strong hands not to grab too hard at her back, but she doesn’t care. She needs it. It’s too damn slow. It’s way too fast. Her fingertips find his tight flat nipples, slide over the raised edges of his ribs and dig into his shoulderblades when her knees start to give. His hands find her ass and pull her into him, and he’s hard and hot against her. _Fuck_. She slides a hand down between them and closes it around his cock. He grits his teeth and drops his head with a low growl against her bare skin, as he throbs in her grip.

Jesus Christ, she wants him inside her, now. The very thought gets her soaked through.

She pushes at his shoulder, in the general direction of his room, and they’re moving again. He’s half-carrying her along with him by the waistband of her jeans, and then they’re tumbling on the bed, and his mouth is hot and wet on her nipples and that’s so good she bites back a cry. Her fingers lock in his hair and he freezes a moment, with a muttered “ _Fuck_ ,” against her breast. Then he sucks in a breath and licks and laps and suckles with singleminded focus, stroking and rolling the other _just right_ between his fingers, until she wonders if she might actually come from this alone. Not quite. She’s so close.

Then his fingers pull impatiently at the zip of her jeans and his hand slides into her panties and oh, God, she’s wet, and her hips are arching and twisting up into his touch, and shit, that’s a cry she can’t hold back. His two fingers sliding between her soft, slick folds and dragging over her stiff little clit mimic his mouth tugging at her nipple, sending her into a mindless panting ecstatic tumble towards the brink. He needs it just as much as she does, needs to feel her come under his fingers, needs to know himself bringing her off like that.

“ _Eddie_.”

His rough sigh in her ear is all it takes. The world goes supernova. Her body jackknifes in crashing waves, on and on, and he’s gentling his fingers, barely stroking, spinning her out in long aftershocks that slowly, slowly let up.

She opens her eyes, breathing hard, and drags his mouth down to her with an arm around his neck. Her turn now to fuck his mouth, tonguing and teasing till he moans for mercy. Her hands are quick on his fly, and she lets him up briefly so she can shuck his jeans and underwear over his ass and onto the floor. She lifts her hips and he slides his hands down along her skin to strip her naked, and oh, that’s fucking perfect. She pulls him back down onto her, and God, the weight of him, the heat of him, after so long.

All it takes is one leg sliding over his hip and he’s pushing inside and gasping against her mouth, or maybe it’s both of them. He slides all the way in at once, hard and thick, and a heavy shudder runs through him. And then, holy _fuck_ , he’s taking her, for real, his thrusts short and deep and intense, all friction and grind and bucking spine. She wraps both legs around him and oh, _fuck me, Reagan_ , that’s the angle there, right there, right there. He’s not going to last long, not this time, and she clenches down on him, and there’s no way she could come again so soon after that last one, but suddenly she is, she can’t help it, and her cries hit the air as her nails score his back unthinkingly, and then he’s gone too, jerking in her arms as his breath cuts off and the pleasure breaks through him, surge after surge. And then he’s cast up on her shores, panting raggedly on her breast as she holds his head against her.

She brings him back slowly, after a minute, stroking the soles of her feet down his legs and easing her muscles around him. He draws in a long inhale, and his hand strokes over her hip, just for the sake of touch. He manages to rise up on his elbow, shakily, and slips out of her as she lets her legs drop to the bed.

Their eyes meet. There’s a deep calm now, and wonder at the awesome powerful thing they just set off between them, and love, such a love she can’t believe neither of them has ever really said it out loud. It’s not that they need to, even now, but she’ll whisper it to him later.

He leans down and kisses her softly, lingeringly. She hadn’t realized her lip was bitten bruised. He hadn’t felt the scratches of her nails in his back until now. Oops. But it’ll happen again, and they don’t care.

Then one of them cracks a grin. They’ll never agree who did it first, later on. But then they’re both grinning and giggling and wrestling very gently, snickering into each other’s bare skin, for no real reason other than it’s about damn time.

 

* * * * *

 

They have no intentions of withholding information, but they know the value of a well-planned communications rollout.

“I better call Dad tonight,” Jamie sighs. “He’ll know about Undercover adopting us soon, if he doesn’t already. I’ll keep it brief, just let him know we’re together finally and we’ve put things right with Tony. I’ll deal with the rest of them later.”

“You think?” she asks, drowsily. She tucks herself back into the inward curve of his body as they lie together in a half-doze under the quilts. “Won’t the whole family interrogate you over a pit of coals as soon as they hear anything? They’re gonna want all the details.”

“They might,” he admits. He strokes a warm hand down her arm, and interweaves his fingers with hers, under her breasts. He nuzzles a kiss into the crook of her neck, and murmurs behind her ear, “I’m expecting a call from Danny any second. But he can wait. I’ll just tell him yes, leave us alone, and I’ll take questions from the gallery on Sunday. Nobody’s going to be surprised. They’re mostly going to enjoy themselves taking shots at me.”

“Aw. You better come back here after so I can dress your war wounds. Least I can do.”

“Dress, or undress?” his low chuckle tickles her ear, and makes her writhe just a little.

“Hm,” she muses thoughtfully, and as Jamie mumbles something and slides away from her, tucking the quilt around her shoulders, she drifts off into a delightful dreamlet of unbuttoning, untucking and unzipping him, very slowly this time.

 

 * * * * *

 

“...and what that _also_ means is that as of eight-thirty this morning, we’re not partners on the job anymore.”

“And free to date each other,” his father finishes, having been waiting for the punch line all along.

“Well, that’s an added benefit, sure,” Jamie says, deadpan.

His father rolls his eyes, even over the phone, and echoes Patimkin: “It took you two long enough.”

Jamie hears his grandfather give an “Ah- _hah_!” of triumph in the background, and he assumes Pop has been listening to half of the conversation.

“Yeah, yeah. So Lt. Gormley hasn’t heard about us being assigned to Undercover yet?”

“If he did, he didn’t bring it to me, and he knows better than to sit on something like that. My guess is, Tony’s just reached out to them today and let them know they can have you. It’s a great opportunity, Jamie, for both of you. You’ve done fine work with them already. It still means you can’t work ops together, though, you know. And you will certainly find yourselves prohibited from sharing information about your cases from time to time.”

“Yeah, we know. We’ve talked about that a bit. At least this way, if one of us does get brought in on a major case that any cop’s family oughta be part of discussing, we can go to our CO and talk it out.”

“You’ve thought this through.”

“Kind of on the fly, as things come up, yeah.”

“I admit I’ve hoped for an outcome like this, Jamie. You’re too good for each other on the job to let go completely, but you couldn’t stay partners forever. And I’ve always felt badly that my position and name may be holding you back.”

“Well, we’re sure un-held-back now.” _There’s an understatement_ , he thinks, grinning to himself. “Hey, can you maybe help take everyone’s pitchforks and torches away on Sunday?”

“I’ll see if the Monsignor can give a sermon on supporting our loved ones in all their endeavors in the coming New Year.”

“Oh, I’m sure that’ll help.”

“I’m sorry, son. Danny and Erin are going to go to town on you. I would like nothing more than for Eddie to join us for dinner, but you two will have to decide how and when you want that to happen. Please tell her the welcome has been open to her for a long time already.”

“I will. Gotta go, Dad. Thanks.”

He ends the call and tosses the phone onto his night-stand, sitting on the edge of his bed. He takes a deep inhale, and stretching his elbows out, twists from side to side. His back hasn’t felt this loosened up in ages. Not even a single twinge or pop of a ligament. Not bad for thirty-eight at the end of a desk-day, but then, he’s just had a pretty intense micro-workout.

Behind him, Eddie runs soft fingertips up his back, tracing over the marks she’s left on him, and a spine-shiver follows the path of her touch. He looks over, and there she is, curled up his sheets, pale bare shoulders, messy hair and thoroughly satisfied, sleepy eyes. Her grin matches his as he leans down and kisses her mouth, her forehead, the palm she half-heartedly shoves him away with. Holding her small hand against his cheek, he gazes down at her.

“We’re here,” he murmurs.

“Wherever _here_ is,” she says. “That was really sweet of your dad. I heard what he said. And speaking of dinner…”

“What you in the mood for?”

“A whole lot more of you. But what about deli sandwiches for now?”

“Pastrami, any green vegetable, no tomato, no hot peppers but extra mustard?”

She pulls an adorable face, and he kisses her palm again. “I guess I do have my habits.”

“Call it strong likes and dislikes,” he temporizes. He lets go of her hand, and reaches down for his jeans, on the floor. He slides into them commando-style, for the purposes of opening the door shortly, and she chuckles real low.

“I’m developing some strong likings right now," she tells him.

“I can tell. Lemme call the deli. Sooner we get these delivered the sooner these jeans can stay off.”

 

* * * * *

 

“That _was_ what I think it was, wasn’t it?” asks Henry. “Those two finally figured it out?”

“Oh, I think they figured it out a while ago. Not always easy to decide what to do about it.”

Henry sighs. “Between falling in love with his partner and having us casting shadows over any promotion recommendation, he’s been caught between the gears. I’m surprised he stuck it out this long. And none of his CO’s ever decided, well, screw it, we’re putting this kid’s name in for promotion, no matter what it looks like?”

“Several have, as a matter of fact. But they were overspoken by their own supervisors.”

“That’s not right. There’s avoiding all appearance of favouritism, and then there’s being punished just for being the PC’s kid.”

“And grandkid. But it’s more than just us standing in his way, Pop. I may be his PC, but I’m also his Dad, and my youngest seems to be hell-bent on re-enacting Serpico.”

Henry regards him seriously for a moment. “General corruption? Or you think the Blue Templar still exists?”

“I know it does. I just don’t have proof that I can move on, not without implicating Danny and myself as well as Jamie in Malevsky's death. And I know Jamie knows. That’s why he’s been sticking around the shop floor. And why Undercover’s been using him and Eddie more often recently. They’re interested in what he reports of other officers’ activities during undercover ops. Not things IAB would hear about, nothing actionable. Relationships of power, habits that don’t add up. Spidey-sense stuff.”

“You never told me this.”

“I’m telling you now. I had only impressions until recently.”

“Has he been white-knighting it over other officers? Openly, I mean?”

“To a point. Minor screw-ups that just need training out, mostly. In one case, a very big error in judgement that had to be dealt with higher up. My concern is, he’s got a way of making things personal instead of reporting them officially. Counselling fellow officers they need to get help with addictions, or he’ll come forward with what he’s seen them taking from crime scenes. Lending them money to help with gambling debts, that sort of thing. He forgets he’s not a chaplain, or the police shrink.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“It is.”

“And you think by working with Undercover, he’ll be able to – what? Do something substantial about it? Or be kept out of it?”

“That’s up to the unit. But he’ll be under much tighter supervision, and have every decision queried and analyzed in a way he hasn’t had to deal with for a few years now. He won’t be able to try to make things right on the quiet just to let people save face, or go around protocols. He doesn’t know how close he’s come to upsetting communications backchannels we’ve spent decades developing. Eddie, too. Whatever they see and whatever they do about it will have immediate impacts. But they’ll also get a new level of training in human observation and instinct retrieval. That’s just part of any undercover work.”

“That could be very good for both of them. And their careers.”

“Or very bad. But I have to trust them out there. And mostly, hope they think to ask for help if they get pushed in over their heads.”

“Well.” Henry raises his evening whiskey. “Here’s to the kids. And may they not forget they’re allowed to have a life together outside of the job.”

“Oh, I think they got that memo,” Frank mutters into his own glass. There’s no mistaking what he heard in his youngest son’s voice.

 

* * * * *

 

“ _Zdravo, Mama_.”

“ _Zdravo, mali. Kako si_?”

“ _Dobro, dobro. Mama, imam vesti za vaš_.”

Eddie adjusts her laptop screen so her face is better centered and lit, and her mother smiles and waves. “I see you just fine. Now, what’s this news you have?”

Her mother dresses for a Skype chat as though she’s going on television, Eddie thinks. Her dark wavy hair is elegantly rolled and pinned into a soft French twist, and the sparkling diamante brooch on the lapel of her tailored wine-coloured wool jacket matches her earrings. Her turtleneck and neat trousers are black. She sits on a floral couch in her living room, her own laptop angled so Eddie can see the silver candlesticks on the sideboard behind her, and a large original oil painting on the wall above.

Eddie’s in her usual jeans and soft v-neck sweater. Sitting at her laptop at her dining table is a deliberate choice she made. She’d rather have Skyped from her phone, and been able to pace around her apartment as she talks, but this conversation will likely be difficult enough.

“You know my partner at work, Jamie?”

“Of course I remember your Jamie. How is he? There’s been no trouble?”

“No, Mom, no trouble. But we’re not partners anymore. I guess he’s my boyfriend now. Anyway, we’re together.”

Mira beams, and folds her delicate hands together as if she’s praying. “ _Draga_! How wonderful! I know how much you love him, little one.”

“You do?”

“Of course,” Mira says again. “He’s the man I met when I visited you two years ago, yes? With the quiet voice. The way he looked at you then, I thought that’s why you invited me to come see you. To introduce me to him.”

“Oh…” she sits back, a little nonplussed. “Well, that’s Jamie, all right. And he’d love to see you again, and meet Bradley.”

“He’s welcome to join us for dinner on _Božić_ , if you would like to bring him with you. Though I seem to remember he has a large family in New York. Oh – ” The light in Mira’s blue eyes flickers a little. “Is that why you’re calling? You’re staying there this year?”

“No, no. I’m coming out to Katonah, I promise. But I’d love to get you all together, maybe between then and New Year’s. And I might have a little time off in February, before I start my next assignment. That’s my other news. I’m going to be working for the Undercover unit full-time. Just for six months, at first, till we see how it goes.”

She needs to ease her mother into this gently. The scraps of information that Eddie was allowed to give her about the Serbian trafficking ring has not relieved Mira's ongoing anxiety about her daughter’s work.

“Oh, _draga_. You’re not pretending to be one of those girls again?”

“I don’t know, Mom, but there’s a lot of work to do on all sorts of cases. They’re not usually like that one.” Many of them are even worse, but she’s not telling her mother that. “I’ll have to go where I’m sent, but I’m going to get a lot more training, and Jamie will be working undercover too.”

“That’s better news,” Mira tells her, with a humorous lift to her cheek. “He’ll take care of you.”

“More like I’ll be taking care of him. He’s way too nice.”

“That’s my girl.”

Taking a deep breath, Eddie and goes on: “Mom, you know, I think it’s really serious with Jamie and me. We’ve been talking about our families a lot. I wanted to ask you more about your side. Dad’s told me lots about Nagymama Edit, but I don’t know much about Baka Marija.”

Mira hides what appears to be a flinch by fussing with her jacket collar. “My mama? What do you want to know?”

“I want to know what her life was like. In Priejdor. You told me a little bit, once, when those boys were so horrible to me in college. I know it was bad, and she did everything she could to help her family. I feel like I need to know more about her.”

Her mother’s gaze seems to wander off the camera, and then she looks down at her hands, folded in her lap.

“Bad?” she says, “Yes, it was bad. Your Baka Marija was only five years old, and the second daughter of her family, when the Croatian Ustaše came into power. She was too little for school, still, when the village school building was set on fire. Her older sister died there. Just seven. Imagine that. Most of the little children were from Serb and Orthodox families, you see. Priejdor was always a city where everybody got along. We had Serbian, Russian Orthodox, Jewish, Muslim, Catholic, Magyar, even a few Tatar and tribal Uzbek families in the same city. But the Ustaše wanted everyone in Yugoslavia-Herzegovina to be Croatian, and Catholic. Or Muslim. But better if they were Catholic. That was how the war came to Priejdor. They used politics and money in the big cities, but in the rural villages, they went after the little children first, as a warning.”

Eddie focuses intently on her mother’s face as she speaks, looking for signs of her grandmother. _Soldiering skipped a generation_ , she thinks, _but there’s a soldier in you, too, Mama. You survived because your Mama ordered you to remember, and you’ve never forgotten._

Mira describes how Marija, now the eldest child, taught herself to shoot. First it was to hunt for food and drive pests off the family’s tiny vegetable garden. And then it was to protect her growing crowd of little brothers and sisters from the Ustaše bullyboys, as they walked to school, and even on the way to and from Church on Sundays. The bullyboys, older teen boys, would drag unaccompanied children to the local Catholic Church, where they were “baptized” – held underwater until they panicked and nearly drowned, whereupon they were hauled up, praised for their bravery, given new names, clothes and a full hot meal, and told their parents no longer wanted them. They were sent to cities, to be raised by Ustaše families, though most were used as child servants, or worse.

It was not the Catholic priests doing this, and in fact none of the old Catholic families wanted anything to do with it, Mira pointed out. Many of them gathered to worship in the state-approved Islamic mosques instead, which were willingly opened to them at night by sympathetic and shocked Muslims, to hold secret Masses and Confessions.

Boys and girls over fourteen were abducted into the Ustaše army, instead. The boys were put to soldiering far from home in villages where nobody spoke their language and could not help them get home. The girls were assigned to cook and clean and comfort the boys, and to have as many babies as quickly as possible. And the pogroms, the burning of buildings, the night raids and rape-squads and ghettoing of religious groups into smaller and more squalid compounds continued.

“Your Baka Marija,” Mira tells her, “Managed to keep her family together, after her parents were killed in front of her, until she was fourteen years old. There was another World War going on at the time, but she barely knew about it. All she knew was that there was no English or Russian or American food or any clothes to buy anymore. Everything had to be grown at home, mended until it couldn’t hold together.”

“What happened when she was fourteen?”

“She kissed her little brothers and sisters goodbye, and went with the Ustaše, who promised she would be treated kindly, since she was a good housekeeper and a hunter. They told her her brothers and sisters would be given food and clothes for the winter. She lived as the little wife of a boy who was also fourteen when he was kidnapped and forced to become a soldier. But there was no food and clothes from the army, and most of the other children starved to death without her. The oldest, Tetka Lizzie and Daidža Andy – your Protetka Jelizaveta and Prodaidža Andrej – were able to work a little and were taken in by families who said they were Muslim. That was the only other acceptable faith.”

“Oh, Mom. The little kids weren’t sent out to other families? Even Ustaše families in the cities?”

“No,” says her mother. “At that point, anyone who could not work was sent to a concentration camp. They wouldn’t have lasted very long.”

 _Jesus_ , Eddie thinks. The story matches what she’s read, but hearing it from her mother is terrible. There’s no other word for it. But she has to hear the whole story.

“And Baka Marija? How did she get away?”

“The Second World War ended a year and a half later, and then the Allies liberated the Yugoslavian territories. Mama surrendered herself to the Americans and lived in a Displaced Children’s home until she was eighteen. Imagine that. She was still a child, legally. She met my father, your Deda, when she was twenty-one. She was working as an army nurse for the American residual forces, back in Priejdor. I was born there two years later, as you know.”

“But then what happened to…”

“I don’t know, _mali_ ,” Mira says sadly. “Daidža Andy thought the boy she was living with was probably sent to England or Canada, to work on a farm. They were never properly married, you know. But I heard from Tetka Lizzie once that she thought Mama...got rid of a baby before surrendering to the Americans. Tetka Lizzie only had feelings that there was a child, and Mama never spoke of one. It was bad enough that she became a Ustaše wife, even if it was to save her family. She would not have been admitted to the Children’s Home, with a baby, and no village would welcome a teenager with an illegitimate Ustaše child. They would have been country beggars in the cold hard winter. Maybe it’s true, I don’t know.”

Eddie feels a wave of nausea and grief and compassion that no amount of reading could have prepared her for. She thinks of the dream-infant she carried, who could not replace the one who was lost, but who eventually became as dear to her.

“Mama, _zašto mi to nikada nisi rekao_?” she asks, her voice unnecessarily harsh with choking tears.

“How could I tell you?” Mira asks her in return. “By the time you were old enough, we’d lost everything, your father and I. How could I explain what Mama did to survive, and then justify what your father did once he came here? War twists people, little one. We do things to keep ourselves and our families alive that we can’t imagine ourselves doing otherwise. I came here when I was eighteen, willing to work hard, but never wanting my children to know a day’s hunger. And I met your father two years later, and we built our dream from the ground. So I thought.”

Tears are coursing freely down Eddie’s cheeks, and she wishes she was sitting with her mother instead of watching her through a screen, hearing her through tinny speakers. No wonder her mother nearly lost it completely when her own marriage collapsed in utter betrayal and the threat of dire poverty. So much of what has always unsettled Eddie in her very skin makes more sense now.

“If you want to know more,” Mira says, “You might try to find Tetka Lizzie’s and Daidža Andy’s grandchildren, your cousins. I don’t have much, but I have two of their names. You could probably start there.”

She sounds remarkably stable, Eddie thinks. She wonders how long her mother has needed to tell her this, and been holding on to it instead, trying to protect her.

Apparently that’s a family trait.

She really needs to go and visit her father soon, too. With Jamie.

 

* * * * *

 

As much as Jamie looks forward to having Eddie beside him at Sunday Dinner, he’s very glad she’s spared this one. Eddie’s had a rough enough week, after hearing her mother’s family stories, and then hearing her father’s been denied visitors for an indefinite period, due to a general anti-drug-smuggling lockdown at Fort Dix. She’s glad of some downtime while he’s at Church and dinner. Spending every night together has been wonderful, but it’s sometimes a little much for two long-time solitary dwellers. The Reagans en masse would be too much, today.

The family is bubbling over with righteous glee after being denied so long.

It begins with Nicky flying into his arms the moment he steps through the back door into the kitchen, wet hands and all, since she’s been tearing up lettuce for a salad.

“Is it true?” she demands. He blinks in confusion and looks down at her, one hand resting on her head.

“Is what true? About Santa? I thought we talked about that.”

“Uncle Jamie!”

He cracks a smile. “Yes, kiddo, it’s true. And thank you again for not busting us up over the rooms.”

“You’re welcome.” She hugs him tight, and goes back to the work table. “Although it sounds like I might’ve done anyway.”

“No, not in this case. The timing mattered a great deal, and being able to tell the truth.”

Danny rounds the door. He halts when he sees Jamie.

“Well, hey! Look who it is, the slowest damn player in NYPD history.”

“See, I wasn’t actually _playing_ anyone, so – ”

“Kid, I’ve watched cops meet up, get married and divorced in a shorter time than you and Eddie took just to admit you even liked each other.”

“Well, poor them, I mean, that’s – ”

“So you plan on asking her to marry you before you retire?”

“I thought midnight on New Years’, actually,” he shoots back. He had no idea he was going to say that, he was just reaching for a cliché to toss, but it drops at his feet and there it is. And there is silence in its wake.

“Really?” asks Nicky, breathlessly.

“Really?” asks Danny, staring at him. This isn’t the sort of thing Jamie’s ever joked about.

“Jeez, I don’t know. We just got together, like, _this week_.”

“A week and four and a half years,” Danny points out, seriously. “You know partners get closer than spouses, lot of the time. It’s not just a thing people say.”

“I know. Don’t start planning. I was just shutting you down.”

“Yeah, but now we gotta talk about this.” Danny pulls out a chair and sits down, back-to-front, his arms folded across the back.

“No, we really don’t.”

“Talk about what?” Erin asks, bustling in from the inside door with a paper sack of groceries. “Hey, Romeo.” She kisses his cheek as she deposits the bag on the table, and then hugs her daughter. “Hey, Nicky.”

“What about me?” Danny whines.

“Sorry. Hey, Jerkface.” She drops a kiss on Danny’s head.

“That’s better.”

“So what are we not talking about?” Erin continues, hanging up her scarf and winter coat on the line of hooks beside the door.

“Uncle Jamie and Eddie,” Nicky sighs happily. “He’s gonna ask– ”

“No, he’s not,” Jamie says quickly.

“Really? Why on earth not?” Erin asks, stepping over to the sink to scrub her hands. “Let’s be honest, you guys have had this thing going pretty much since day one. I would’ve sworn you got together last year, but then it – ” her eyes narrow at him. “You didn’t, did you?”

“No, we did not.”

“But you almost did.”

“That’s neither here nor there.”

“You almost did,” she confirms. “Okay, so you’re in the clear now, you can do what you want together. Can you look me in the eye and tell me she’s not the one you want to be with? After all that’s happened?”

He raises his hands in a helpless, pleading gesture. He was expecting fastball teasing, not earnest queries about how soon Eddie might be absorbed into the family. “Not just now, okay? And you of all people should know how Romeo ended up. That’s what happens when you rush headlong into things.”

“Rush into things!” Nicky groans. “Uncle Jamie! We’ve been watching you guys for _years_! We’ve always known you were in love.”

“Even when you didn’t,” Danny points out, which is pretty close to the bone, but Jamie has to admit the truth of it.

He thinks about the conversation he and Eddie have been trying to have, off and on, about their family histories, and faith or lack thereof, and what the best course might be to pick through the maze. They might not be the Capulets and the Montagues, but there’s going to be some difficult reckoning and resettling, at the very least. And the holiday season is already fraught with high emotions and family drama.

“Uncle Jamie needs a drink,” Erin tells her daughter, eyeing his face. “You guys go on. I’ll take over here. Tell Jack and Sean I’m ready for their help with the lasagne.”

He sighs and follows Nicky into the house, where his father and grandfather are sitting in the front room, having exchanged church suits for cords and cardigans. They both look up and frown slightly as he greets them.

“Jameson,” his grandfather said. “What’s this I hear about you and some young lady at work having a whirlwind romance?”

“Not that we’re completely out of step with young people, but there a certain – what would you call it, Pop? – a certain _graciousness_ to a nice, long courtship. A few years, say four or five, in order to _deeply_ contemplate every possible – ”

His father makes it this far, before the pair of them erupt like schoolboys pranking the teacher. Jamie, whose stomach had actually dropped a little at Pop’s tone of voice, sinks onto the couch beside him and shakes his head.

“Not you as well.”

“Oh, believe me, you missed the worst of it before you even got here,” Pop assures him. “So where is the glorious Edit?”

He pronounces it just right, with a soft “Eh” and a barely inflected “t”, which Jamie thinks Eddie will fall for in a big way. One day. Not today.

“Making a run for the border, if she heard you two.”

“The Scottish border, is it?” Pop asks, “Making for Gretna Green like all the young couples in a mad rush to matrimony? You reckless young people, these days.”

“Didn’t you and Grandma only meet six months before you got married?”

“Did we? Goodness me. And it only took me a week to ask her on a date, now that I recall.”

It’s a very long two hours as the tangy, garlicky scent of Linda’s lasagne mellows and permeates the house. Jamie fends off hugs, back pats, knowing grins, innuendo,  suggestions of when and how to propose, and just about every variety of “what took you so long?” the English language has on offer.

It occurs to him that as intense and constant as the teasing is, there hasn’t been a single flare-up of temper or sensitive button pushed, as he’s used to in this family. They’re just so damn happy they can’t help poking him to see how happy _he_ is, and wondering why he’s not laughing along with them. They know he doesn’t like being in the hotseat, but at least he can admit he’s kept them waiting long enough. He’s developed such a knee-jerk reaction to everyone making assumptions about him and Eddie that it’s going to take him some time to reprogram them.

Really, he wants to grin a lot and get a little smashed and tell his favourite Eddie stories to anyone who’ll listen.

It turns out that that’s the way to shut them up. It’s everything they’ve wanted for him, all along. And after three and a half years, Pop finally gets to smack his hand for coming to play cards with him when he should have been out at Eddie’s wet-down, cheering her on for finishing her probation.

“I wanted to tell you then, Jamie, that she is not a girl you ever want to let down if it’s in your power,” he says. “But I didn’t. And I should have. Because I was right, and I knew I was right.”

“Yeah, yeah.”

Pop’s right, of course. And as delighted as the entire Reagan clan is to see him happy and not hiding it for once, he wants Eddie to know that her family is just as important to him – Mira and Bradley, Armin, her cousins still in Serbia. They matter just as much to him, the people that created and formed Eddie, and their stories and history are a much a part of his and Eddie’s future.

After dinner, he’s going to Eddie’s place, to be whatever she needs him to be, as her own family tapestry unfolds around her. For now, he’s with his own family, and they have Linda’s legacy to share in tonight: her two sons, the familiar dinner she made for them all with such love and attention, and the changes she inspired in Danny over twenty years of marriage.

Jamie’s got a lot to learn from that, and he thinks it’s time he started taking notes.

 

* * * * *


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What's more complicated than family over the holidays?

They’re on the road again, coursing down the Expressway towards Montauk in Jamie’s Mustang. Eddie’s got the wheel, feeling like she’s galloping a thoroughbred mouthing at the bit for the signal to make for the finish line. If her Silver Belle is a beloved, retired racehorse who still loves a hard sprint, the Mustang is a fresh young colt with amazingly good manners.

It’s the night after Solstice. The longest night of the year but one, with a bare sliver of moon, and no falling stars anymore. But they don’t need celestial objects anymore to lend them luck and show them the way. They know exactly where they’re going, now, even if they don’t know where they’ll end up. The nighttime highway is like their own private causeway through the universe again, Eddie thinks. Returning to Montauk so soon, and to the very same room where their relationship finally burst its restraints, is a gift indeed.

“What’d Dianne say? About us only needing one room now?” Eddie asks.

“She’s a professional. She just asked if we had a preference for which one. But I could tell she was smiling, even over the phone.”

“I think she likes us.”

“I think we should come back and stay with her every winter,” he says, and she gives him a quick, brilliant grin and turns back to the road.

“Hey, if this gig works out, we might be invited back to work. Paid getaway.”

This is the twelfth year of a very closed, invitation-only get-together for thirty or so musical luminaries of the world jazz scene. It began, as these things often do, as a weekend getaway for a few friends, and it’s grown. Some of the guests don’t even admit to attending; they say they’ve come to Christmas-shop in Manhattan before flying home in their personal jets.

These people are well-known, incredibly rich and talented, and strong targets for ransom or stalkers or bizarre paparazzi tactics. They want to let their hair down and enjoy not being in the public eye for a little while. For three days and two nights, they eat, drink, sleep and make music together, at an industry billionaire’s five-acre compound with secrecy and luxury as the first priorities. Then, over the next year or two, some of the finest innovative recordings and collaborations will slowly be released by the participants’ music labels.

She and Jamie will be part of a team of day-and-night security patrols, reporting to the compound’s permanent Head of Security. The billionaire host somehow knows Eddie’s father’s real-estate developer friend, through some complicated web that Eddie isn’t sure she wants to know. There will be uniformed and plainclothed police and security inside and outside every building, monitoring the garage, the grounds and especially the front gates.

The permanent home security team is an elite, paramilitary- trained group of ten, and there will be thirty extra police officers and military on the extended team this weekend. She and Jamie, as the members with the least experience with this level of international high-stakes security, will have to step up and learn fast to avoid embarrassing themselves. It’s a favor to them that they were even asked to play a role, and Eddie’s kicking herself that she didn’t see she’d likely end up owing something instead of letting an old man pay off some karmic debt.

Dianne and Harold, however, greet them like old friends, as they check in at the front desk of the Inn. Dianne’s even put some fresh fruit and a Tupperware container of her blueberry scones in their room, the one that used to be Jamie’s, along with her usual cookies and chocolate and Keurig coffee supplies.

“We didn’t know what time you’d get in tonight, or if you’d need to leave for work right away,” Dianne explains, leading them to the familiar little cottage to make sure they have everything they need. She’s only been told that they’re doing another security weekend at a low-key celebrity Christmas party, and she knows enough not to ask any names. “We thought maybe you’d have to work overnight or something, the way those parties go on out here.”

“That’s super nice of you,” Eddie says, dropping her tactical bag and small suitcase next to the dresser, “And a good call. We’re working late nights, until ten o’clock or a bit after, but not till tomorrow. We’ll try to come in quietly.”

“You just get home safe, that’s all,” Dianne says. “All set? Then sleep as late as you need. We won’t bother you with breakfast. And look, there’s nobody booked in the other side of the cottage this weekend, so if you need to spread out your things or use both bathrooms, go right ahead.”

She waves as she leaves, and Eddie has the distinct feeling she was about to hug them goodnight. She has the energy of someone for whom hugs come naturally, and she’s awfully happy for them.

Left alone in the room where they finally stopped running from each other, they share a smile. Jamie holds out his hands, and Eddie takes them willingly and stands on tiptoe to kiss him.

“I think she just told us not to worry about making noise,” Jamie says, amused. Eddie thinks he’s probably right, but also that Dianne knows very well that couples who work together sometimes need space.

“Feels like it’s been a lot longer than not-quite three weeks,” she says, slipping her arms loosely around his waist. He rests his arms over her shoulders and kisses the top of her head.

“ ‘Cause it has been,” he points out. “According to Danny, it’s been _four and half years_ and not-quite three weeks.”

“I like how your brother thinks. Sometimes.” She slides her palms around and up his chest, the muscles and planes becoming ever more dear and familiar to her. “I remember what it was like just to stand right here, in this spot,” she tells him, “and just _know_ that we were gonna end up kissing.”

“You told me to. It was pretty much ‘kiss me or else’ at that point.”

“Did I? I guess I did. I was really fucking turned on, okay? It was hard to pretend to focus on work or anything.”

“Were you now,” he says. “What got you turned on so bad before I even kissed you?”

“Just things. The drive up. Talking with you, like we hadn’t done in ages. Mmm. Oh, that’s good.”

Jamie’s mouth is tracing a slow, whisper-soft path down along her throat and up under her sensitive earlobe.

“Are you telling me,” he murmurs, “you weren’t making yourself all happy in the shower that night, all by your lonesome?”

“Maybe,” she sighs, leaning her head back. “Weren’t you?”

“Maybe,” he says. “I asked you first.”

“What if I was?”

She flashes back to a night in a noisy bar, and the plummeting of her heart as she spotted him come towards her, all dressed up to go out with Jen the doctor. She’d asked him then: _What if I was?_ She was more than jealous, she realizes. He’d broken her heart a little, even though she’d pushed him to accept Jen’s offer. How far they’d had to come, from dancing always just out of arms’ reach, to here.

He nips her earlobe, and she sucks in a breath with a shiver.

“You gonna tell me what you were thinking about in there?”

“Think I should?”

“I totally think you should.”

“What if you don’t like it?”

“I would say,” he replies, sliding his hands under her sweater, and tugging her t-shirt out of the waistband of her jeans, “That the chances of that are slim to absolutely none. And also – ”

“Mm?” she asks, as his fingers find the warm sensitive skin up her spine.

“I’ll tell you mine if you tell me yours.”

“Well, how can a girl turn down an offer like that?”

“Arms up.” He pulls her sweater and shirt both over her head, and drapes them over the nearest chair. “This is nice,” he says, tracing a finger over the edge of her bra, a soft creamy color in printed cotton, with small lilac and blue flowers on curling green vines.

“You’ve seen it.”

“Have I?”

“Eh,” she wrinkles her nose. “Actually, it ended up on your floor in like five seconds.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” He dips his head and brushes kisses over the tops of her breasts, cradling them in his hands. “It’s really pretty. Want it off?”

“Uh huh.”

She turns around so he can unclasp it, and he keeps going, stripping her down to the skin with an unhurried pace. He plants little kisses here and there as he does. Between her shoulderblades. The curve of her hip. The inside of her knee, as he crouches to help her out of her jeans, with one hand on his shoulder. It’s exquisite.

“Now I’m all turned on and cold,” she complains, turning back to him. “Not a good combination.”

“Shower?” he suggests, cuddling her close. Her eyes light up. They haven’t done that yet.

“Then you can do a little more than _tell me yours_ ,” she murmurs. “I’m gonna want a live demonstration.”

In a very few minutes they’re under a steamy hot spray, crowded into the little stall, but it hardly matters.

“In my _car_?” she repeats, a little breathlessly. She’s had a few vivid car fantasies herself involving Jamie, and she’s not surprised it’s mutual. It’s a good thing they hadn’t shared that bit of information before. The drive up might have taken a lot longer and involved a frantic search for hidden off-road spots.

“Mm hm,” he admits.

“And I’m doing this?” she asks, stroking his hard length from balls to tip in her hand. He fucking loves it when she goes light and easy with him, as much as it drives him crazy.

“Yeah,” he barely breathes.

“And then _this_ ,” and she somehow finds room for her knees underneath her, between his feet. As her tongue flicks out to taste him, her hand comes up to cradle his balls, stroking here and there, and his eyes slam shut, and all he can do after that is groan and brace himself upright.

“Don’t come,” she whispers, “You better not come all over my car.”

It’s going to be a long, slow night, she decides.

 

* * * * *

 

The Jam, as it has become known, takes place at the summer home of a music industry magnate with the very mundane name of Sam Delamont. He started as a small-time producer, promoter and general band babysitter in Texas in 1975, and hasn’t stopped working since. His summer compound is estimated to be worth $200 million in land and amenities, and his total net worth is well into nine figures. He’s especially famous for not sleeping around on his first and only wife, with whom he has five unusually well-adjusted adult children. He first hosted The Jam in 2005, and nobody who _asks_ for an invitation is ever invited.

Jamie and Eddie’s arrival at the main gate of the five-acre, pine-encircled compound causes some initial confusion. The guards at the gate were expecting a 2017 Mustang to contain more guests, not a pair of cops reporting for duty. Their identifications are carefully scrutinized, and they even take the precaution of calling Renzulli to confirm their legitimacy before they’re let in. Jamie’s surprised they haven’t called the One PP to speak to his father, until he sees an image of his family scrolling past on the guards computer screen. They’re doing their due diligence, all right, no matter that he and Eddie had sent in their credentials ahead of time.

Apparently, between Renzulli vouching for both of them, and the number of Reagan family photos that have appeared in the media over the years, they pass muster.

“Sorry to keep you waiting,” the older of the two guards says, handing back their ID tags. “You wouldn’t believe how many paps and party crashers pretend to be law enforcement following up on some bogus call. Follow this road as it swings to the right, quarter mile and you come to the staff lot and apartments. Ask for Augustus, at the concierge desk.”

“Thanks,” says Jamie.

“The staff have their own concierge?” Eddie asks, as they drive off.

“I guess they have a lot of staff who travel here with their bosses, and they need a central place to ask all the things their bosses might need them to know. And they probably get days off themselves, to shop or whatever. They’ve got to keep themselves looking sharp, too.”

“Different world. Even for a country-club brat. This is next-level living.”

“Yup.”

They round the corner, and Eddie gasps out loud. The main building is magnificent. It’s not ostentatious or over-landscaped, but it’s a massive, sprawling, comfortable looking stately home meant for housing multiple families and guests. The central building of white stone is three storeys high, with modest but genuine gray slate roof tiles. It’s built around a large, glassed-in performance conservatory at ground level, which can accommodate a small chamber orchestra and a hundred guests. Above this are the Delamont family’s living spaces, with the large dining room and kitchen around the back, overlooking the sea. To either side are curved residential guest wings clad in the same stone, both two storeys high. Past these are a series of one-story bungalows and buildings that appear to be custom built spaces for recording, working out, fine arts studios, or just privacy from the main buildings. There’s an outdoor swimming pool at the back, covered for winter, and two clay tennis courts.

“Good God,” Jamie says flatly. “And this is just the summer house. I hear they live in their own apartment block in Manhattan, rest of the year.”

“There’s the staff apartments, look. Nicer than what we’ve got at home.”

The staff apartments comprise two chunky three-storey blocks with twelve fully-equipped apartments in each, which can house up to four people at a time comfortably, and more at a pinch. They are very grateful that they made their own arrangements at the Inn, because these apartments are an anthill of activity as temporary staff move in to the lesser-used block, and permanent staff pile in together to make room. It’s a combination of the arrival of the personal maids at Gosford Park, and move-in day at a university residence. Many of the staff greet each other as returning colleagues, while others hang back or bluster their way through, according to their attitude and the Q-ratings of their bosses.

They find a large black man they assume is Augustus, waiting for them in the parking lot as they pull in front of the apartments. He whistles happily at the sight of the Mustang, and sort of pats the roof as he leans in to Jamie’s open window.

“Reagan and Janko! They told me you were coming down. Nice wheels, man. Saleen, huh? New model?”

“Yup, it’s a 2017. Had it six months or so now.”

“Now that’s a vehicle with legs plus all the new techno-shit. Feel like Iron Man yet?”

Jamie grins. “It _is_ a bit like having Jeeves around, gotta admit.”

“Not just for city driving, though.”

“Nah, I try to get out and stretch her legs now and then. Part of the draw of coming out here.”

“I hear that,” Augustus says. “I’m sorry, Officer Janko, we’re going on like a pair of stereotypes here.”

“No, no. You should see my baby. 1999 Porsche Boxter, silver with the black canvas top. Custom mahogany wood dashboard,” she tells him, like it’s a secret.

Augustus takes a harder look at her, impressed. “You don’t say.”

“She’s pretty sweet.”

“She really is,” agrees Jamie. “We brought the Porsche out here a few weeks ago. Smooth as skating.”

“So,” Augustus rests his considerable forearms on the windowsill and asks them seriously, “Which one’s faster?”

“This one,” says Jamie, “I mean, Eddie’s is nice, but getting on in years.”

“So _you_ say,” retorts Eddie, “We’ve never raced them, so there’s no evidence either way.”

“Aw, c’mon, Eddie. This car has a tested top speed of two hundred miles per hour. Silver Belle had what, one-fifty when she was new.”

“Silver Belle has been _meticulously_ maintained, and you know a lot of those published tests are in closed treadmill chambers, not real roads. I’d bet Belle – including, of course, my handling of her in real-world conditions – against this gorgeous piece any day.”

Eddie pets the butter soft leather armrest. Augustus bellows appreciatively and Jamie just puts his head to one side and gleams at her.

“We’ll see,” he says. “One day.”

Augustus reaches a hand into the car and shakes both of their hands “Welcome to The Jam. My name is Augustus Timmins, head of private security. Please call me Augustus. I will be your supervisor and chief menace this weekend. You can park over yonder, and get changed for duty at the staff gym over there. There are lockers, if you don’t want to leave anything in the car, but this place is crawling with cops and forces. Come find me in the lobby of Block A when you’re ready.”

Augustus is well over six feet, approaching two-fifty of solid muscle under gleaming chocolate skin, and carries himself like the champion quarterback he was in college. It’s impossible to tell how long ago his college days were. He might be forty or sixty. Either way, he is also packing a lot of heat on his person, and his biceps are the girth of Eddie’s thigh. He’s dressed for outdoor patrol work in non-insignia TACAM-print fatigues and black boots, a black knit cap, and a black windbreaker overtop with many waterproof zippered pockets. Jamie’s certain Augustus is ex-US Army, but he wouldn’t be surprised if he did some training with the Israeli Defense Army for a while, too.

They like him instantly.   

 

* * * * *

 

Their first shift on Friday night begins in a glittering whirl as the guests arrive, by car and helicopter and private jet. Jamie, Eddie and four other uniformed NYPD are assigned, at first, to escort guests and cases of jewels, watches and multi-million dollar musical instruments between cars and the large locked safes in each of the guest residences. Several of the guests do not even acknowledge them, letting their assistants do any necessary talking, but others are friendly and curious about everyone they meet.

One enchanting older Brazilian lady with a mass of rich black curls laughs at them, as she walks in between them, assuring them she’s never felt safer in her life. Her voice, she explains, is _her_ instrument, and it’s insured for more than Wynton Marsalis’ third-best trumpet. She even shows them why, belting out a few bars of scat rhythms that bedeck the air with jewels, even though she’s clearly only at half-power and having fun.

“Oh, Dad’s _second_ -best trumpet, Junia, surely,” compliments Wynton’s son Brandon, from behind them, carefully watching his own pair of saxophone cases roll ahead on a cart. “We can always make another trumpet. We can’t make more of you.”

When everyone is settled in, the work turns to patrolling the perimeter of the property and each of the buildings. They have to memorize the names of each of the guests, which car belongs to them, and who is supposed to have access to their cars. It’s not always clear. Some of the guests are siblings or cousins or lifelong friends, and treat each other’s property in common. Others require thumbprint identification even for their personal assistants to collect so much as a forgotten eyeglass case.

Working the perimeter as a paired unit, they are startled more than once by the sudden appearance of a grinning permanent member of the house security team, who they took for part of a tree or a natural shadow. These people know their stuff.

It’s a good thing they do. Even with the warning from the gatehouse, they’re surprised at how many opportunists try to sneak over the ten-foot electric fence, using the trees on either side. Some offer flimsy excuses to the gatehouse guards instead, in the hopes of securing even a fuzzy image of one of the guests. The longer they can engage with the security staff, the better chance they have. The only thing to do is to bounce them out as quickly as possible.

Jamie hears a few yelps of pain and curses as these interlopers are plucked out from among the trees or marched out of the front gates, and suspects he doesn’t want to know what tactics the house security team are using to eject them. But if he doesn’t witness anything and nobody complains…it’s a fine line between playing dumb and acknowledging the reality of invasive paparazzi tactics.

The thirty guests, who have each brought two or three staff but no plus-ones to this working weekend, don’t need to be introduced to each other. They aren’t concerned with ego-posturing in this glitzy band-camp environment. Once they’ve eaten a good sit-down dinner of steak and seafood, and caught up on the year that’s past, it’s time to get the instruments tuned up and not waste a single moment. This is their brief interval between the performance season and family holiday parties, and they get to remember their musical roots and consider _why_ music comes through them the way it does. Some head in clusters of twos and threes to the small studios. Others stay in the residential suites, avoiding the cold.

Near eight o’clock, Jamie and Eddie have a few minutes to breathe. They pause their patrol near the swimming pool, tired but happy. They sit on a concrete bench, as cold as it is, and listen to the music swirling all around them.

“This is a fairytale,” Eddie breathes, looking around at the compound, glittering with soft golden orb lights all over, in the deepening night. “I mean, I like good jazz and all, but I had no idea.”

“Well, don’t record any of it. They’re checking everyone’s phones going in and out, even with the NDA’s we signed. And monitoring the wifi.”

“I should hope so. This is literally priceless stuff they’re creating.”

They sit together in silence for a minute or two, both of them contemplating asking the other for a very quick dance, but knowing it’s not the time or place.

There’s a muffled sound of something in the trees, from behind them, and then a hollow thud.

They’re on their feet instantly, the two of them moving wide apart and pincering in on the sound from either side. Behind the trees is the tall electric fence. There’s still space for whoever, or whatever it is, to slip out between the trees, but the beams of their superbright flashlights cut right down to the fence, and nothing has crossed either beam.

They sweep in closer together. At ten feet from the trees, Eddie loudly identifies them as NYPD and commands anyone there to step out. There’s not a sound.

“Definitely heard something. Animal?” Jamie suggests.

“Late December, out here? Not even racoons.”

“A bird? Could have been bird-sized.”

“It was more of a ‘thump’, like something falling. Not heavy, but I didn’t hear a bounce.”

They both feel it then. A whisper in the breeze, a prickle at the neck.

“Jamie...” Eddie’s eyes are huge.

“GO.”

They sprint back towards the pool and around to the east wing of the guest residences. Jamie’s got his site radio in hand and manages to tone up the call button just as the gas canister hisses angrily with a rising whine behind them.

It’s tear gas. They can smell it. It’s just blind luck they had their backs turned and covered thirty feet of ground in seconds, or they’d have been temporarily incapacitated. Someone knew they were sitting there, or passing near the trees. This was carefully executed.

“ _Reagan to Augustus_. CS gas deployed behind the swimming pool. Intrusion imminent. Someone’s trying to divert patrols to this location. Send teams either side of pool along perimeter. Repeat, _send teams either side of the pool_. We are unharmed, we reached safe distance. We’re monitoring here.”

“Copy, Reagan,” Augustus says. “Stay on your feet. Keep scouting. Over.”

“No rifle fire. Gas canister must’ve been thrown,” Eddie says, panting, “Not too hard to throw a can over a ten foot fence. Someone must’ve volleyed it over and run the hell along the fence before it went off.”

“Which way, though, and why? Paps or party crashers, you think?”

“Let’s let the others figure out where they are. We’re better positioned to find the can, see what it can tell us, but we’re gonna have to wait.”

There’s a faint sea breeze, but the gas doesn’t appear to be drifting towards the house. It’s going to take a good hour or more to dissipate enough for a search, unless they can get some masks out here. Water hoses would help, but the cold makes freezing up a real risk. For now, they work their flashlights again over the area, from a safe distance. They try to triangulate the location from the angle of the sound from where they were each sitting near the pool.

It’s no use, in tree-thickened darkness. They either need floodlights or to wait for daylight.

They still end up coughing badly by the time Augustus comes back on the air. “Two more intruders detained and under escort to the gatehouse,” he reports. “Neither has knowledge of any CS gas, and they weren’t anywhere near to it. Nothing else out of the ordinary out there. A diversionary attempt, like you said. Maybe a prank.”

“10-4. We can try again in the morning. Unless you want to get some lights up and work overnight?” asks Jamie.

“Let’s give it another thirty. We may know more by then. Night patrols will be all over the fence till dawn, anyway.”

“Copy that.”

They have to find the can. They’re the new kids out here, and the last thing they want is to look incompetent. But after half an hour, Augustus, meeting them in person in the pool area, tells them to call it off. They can come back before their shift in the morning, if they want, to lead a daylight search, since they were the two witnesses to its location.

“Someone was waiting for a patrol to get to the pool area at that time. This wasn’t about you. Don’t sweat it,” he tells them. “You bounced as many looky-loos as the rest of us, and I got a couple great reports of you interacting with the guests. That’s not easy. They don’t even notice staff most of the time.”

They have to be satisfied with that, for now.

“One more hour of regular patrols before you switch off,” Augustus goes on. “Stick around after you get changed, and come meet me on the east side of the Conservatory. Trust me, you don’t want to miss it.”

 

* * * * *

 

There are three Ford F-150 trucks parked in a tidy row in the shadow of the glass performance conservatory, all forest-green. They’re used for general transport on the property. Right now, they’re at rest. Three or four anonymous lumps of people huddle together under blankets in the bed of one truck, and Augustus sits on the tailgate, his powerful legs swinging like a little boy’s. There’s an aroma of coffee in the snappingly cold air, and every now and then a small puff of a cigarette from someone in the truck bed. Just tobacco, Jamie notes. He has no illusions of what’s getting smoked inside the building, but that’s not his business.

“Shush. Work perk,” Augustus whispers to them, with a finger on his lips. “This time of night, any security staff off duty is allowed to come and listen for a half hour or so. You’ve been vetted to hell and back already, so unless y’all are secret musical geniuses, we’re not too worried. But I need your phones and any other transmitting gear in that bin.”

He points to a white plastic storage bin with a lid, in the bed of the second truck. The bin is lined with corrugated rubber mats four inches thick all around and under the lid, to stop the smallest soundwave in its tracks.

“No way,” Eddie breathes. Jamie just grins, and hands her his phone to drop off along with her phone and Fitbit. In seconds, they’re climbing up into the truck bed, and someone’s handing them a couple of rough wool Army blankets.

They wrap up together. Jamie pulls Eddie sideways across his stretched-out legs, and she curls up against his chest, because nobody in this crew cares if they’re partners or lovers, as long as they do their job. They’re pressed up against two more security crew who are total strangers to them, but that’s all to the good. It’s freezing cold and people are warm. And in this atmosphere, the easy camaraderie feels right. Someone waves a thermos of coffee at them, and they gratefully drink deep of the strong, hot brew.

“Y’all okay?” their nearest neighbor asks. “Heard y’all got gassed.”

“We ran, we’re fine,” Jamie whispers back. “Gonna look again in the morning.”

“Not by far the weirdest shit I ever heard out here.”

He leans back against the rear window of the truck cab, Eddie in his arms, feeling as good as it’s possible to be with such an incident hanging unsolved over them.

Three different high-level, impossibly complex jazz jam sessions in one performance space should sound like a riot of clashing noise, but instead it’s layered, textured. Jamie realizes it’s a conversation between old friends. Each small trio or quartet is calling and responding to the other, in its own way. It’s instinctual, unscripted. He can’t see her, but he recognizes Junia’s joyful, powerful voice, hollering and teasing and praying along with the woodwinds and keyboards and muted brass.

He’s not a jazz person, really, though like Eddie he enjoys it now and then. He’s certainly never played in a jam session before, and he’s momentarily confused at his own understanding of what’s going on.

Then he remembers listening to a new jazz CD with his father, sitting over whiskey, four or five years ago. Frank, sitting back in his chair with his eyes closed blissfully, picked out most of the instruments, even identified a couple of the groups of instruments that were playing together as opposed to those playing off each other. Jamie remembers being impressed but hardly surprised at Frank’s knowledge.

 _It sounded just like this_ , he thinks.

He wonders how you could ever capture something like this sound on a recording. It had to have been a live recording. You couldn’t splice it together, or have the different groups playing against pre-recorded tracks of each other, not with the laughing and the sarcastic split-second mimicry that’s so clear that even he can hear it. To get the spatial effect he heard on the recording, you could only have one microphone in one place, just like he’s sitting still now.

Then he remembers his father’s comment about The Jam itself: “That’s quite an event. Some great recordings have come out of that.” Was his father referring to that same CD they’d listened to together? Why didn’t he mention it, if so?

He sits up a little. Maybe he could learn something useful here. Here, at this event, everyone’s phones are turned off, in a soundproof bin. He’ll ask Augustus about bug-sweeps and personnel-vetting later on.

“What is it?” Eddie murmurs into his chest.

“Tell you later. Just a thought.”

 

* * * * *

It’s late when they get back to the inn, and they’re cold and tired. Hot chocolate and Dianne’s scones hit the mark.

Jamie warms up one hand around his mug, and taps out an e-mail to his father with his other thumb.

“You gonna tell me what’s going on, or am I gonna have to interrogate you?”

He looks up, realizing he hasn’t said much in some time. Eddie has her chin resting on her folded arms on the little table, gazing at him curiously. “Maybe something interesting, or it may be nothing. I just wondered how Dad got hold of a recording that sounded almost exactly like that session tonight.”

“Huh.” Eddie rolls her head to one side, sleepily. “Are there other events like The Jam?”

“I have no idea. Augustus might know, just from being around the scene, even though he’s military.”

“And this has what to do with tear gas landing a few feet away from us?”

“Again, maybe something, maybe nothing. That still might’ve been a prank. You see any connection?”

She thinks, her forehead crinkling a little. “Not yet. If there is one, it’ll come. C’mon, let’s warm up in the shower and hit the sack.”

“Long as it’s not my sack you’re hitting.”

“Hitting wasn’t anywhere near my plans,” she assures him seriously, her eyes twinkling deeply.

“Really, now.”

“You liked that thing last night?”

He glances down at his already half-hard self. “Very much. But you’re tired. Why don’t you,” he stands up and comes around to her side, bringing her to her feet with his hands linking around her ribs, “Just let me do for you tonight. Then I’ll tuck you in all nice and warm and happy.”

“But you?”

“Will survive.” He nuzzles into the side of her neck and starts her walking towards the bathroom. “Yeah?”

“Oh, yeah.”

He does indeed tuck her in, squeaky clean and very happy indeed, half an hour later. He’s not unhappy himself, and Eddie has some new visual fantasy material to sleep on. He kisses her heavy eyelids as they fall closed, telling her he’s just going to see if his dad’s e-mailed back and then he’ll come to bed. She nods, and is asleep almost before her next breath.

Five minutes later, he’s scrabbling through his bag for his ear-phones. Frank had ripped the first track of the CD to an audio file, and attached it to his e-mail.

“I didn’t ask as many questions as I should have,” Frank had written, “because the recording was given to me at a house chamber concert by the host, Hunter Mills. NYPD donor politics, I’m afraid. My understanding was that Mills was part of the jam session, but I realize now that I have nothing to base that upon. Have a listen yourself and see if anything jumps out at you. Remember, jazz is a conversation, often a game of challenge. When you’re at the event, listen for someone that sounds self-conscious. You know what people sound like when they’re thinking about something and trying not to say it out loud. That’s the person with something to hide.”

What jumps out at him from the track is not self-consciousness at all, but Junia’s soaring, laughing tones. Junia spends most of her year in Brazil. So his father’s recording may well be from an earlier year of The Jam, as he thought.

Junia’s voice is insured for as much as Wynton Marsalis’ third-best trumpet. How much is that?

A cool few million at least, he thinks. Would she, perhaps, take a gamble on the terms of her recording contract if she knew something was happening with her voice? Would she put her friends’ contracts at risk by helping someone make bootleg recordings of their private jams? He doesn’t think so, but this is a whole new world for him.

He closes his laptop and gets undressed, sliding under the quilt next to Eddie. He’s not in the least tired now, but he’s got to try to rest, at least.

He turns his thoughts, instead, to what it means that hypervigilant Eddie lets herself fall asleep so easily in his presence, letting down her guard completely around him. That she trusts him so deeply with her body, that’s she’s always had to defend. The thought makes his chest tight with a fierce love he doesn’t know how to contain or express. He fits himself around her limbs as best he can without waking her, and carefully drapes an arm over her waist. Inhaling the scent of her, he closes his eyes and lets himself drift and free-associate ideas, knowing his mind will have put a few puzzle pieces together by morning.

 

* * * * *

 

By seven o’clock, they’re both awake, fed and on the road to the Delamont compound. They want to get there as soon as there’s the least daylight to work with. The tear gas ought to have dissipated from the air by now, though they make sure they have plenty of medical gloves for combing through the area.

Augustus is not at all surprised to see them so early, and he’s happy to let them on site ahead of schedule. “Something ain’t right about that whole thing, and it kept me up thinkin’,” he admits. “We’ve had pranksters, and a pile more gatecrashers overnight, but that tear gas didn’t feel like a prank.”

There’s no sign of a tear gas canister on the ground under the trees, anywhere near the area they heard the sound and saw the gas emerge. After an hour of careful searching, including checking for footprints, dust scraped off the electric fence or anything else, they find nothing. Just the lingering smell of CS gas.

They report to Augustus, discouraged. But this time, they also take him aside where nobody else can hear, and Jamie outlies the facts at his disposal about the CD of some previous Jam event, the high-rolling NYPD donor Hunter Mills having a copy and giving it to Frank, and most importantly, Junia being recorded without her knowledge (he thinks). Augustus listens in stony silence. Then he asks to hear the clip of the recording, and Jamie plays it for him through his phone.

“It’s a good thing you told me about this,” Augustus says. “If they’d listened to this at the gatehouse on your way out, they’d have assumed you were recording last night. It’s that similar.”

“So it’s not just me? I don’t know much about jazz, only I remembered Junia’s voice.”

“It’s not just you. I don’t know what year this is from, but I’m betting Junia will. We’ll find her as soon as she’s up and around. I’ll get her PA to let us know.”

“You think this has anything to do with the CS gas incident?” Eddie asks. Augustus crosses his arms and thinks.

“Yes, but I can’t see how yet. And I don’t mind telling you, that’s troubling. It’s my freakin’ job to see these things.”

An hour later, Junia joins them in one of the small studios, and listens to the clip. Her eyes closed, she smiles and sways, even snaps her fingers a little. “Yes, that’s me, and that was here. I can tell you it was three years ago. I know because Paulie Peterson is playing oboe, and Kelson Jones is playing double-bass. Paulie hasn’t been able to make it since then, and we lost Kelson a few months after that. But how did you get this? These are supposed to be private and unrecorded sessions. You haven’t got audio on the security cameras, Augustus?”

“Only at the gatehouse and in the lobby of the two staff buildings, Ma’am. Everywhere else is video only.”

“Well, this is serious. A whole lot of the same crowd are here now, but there’s some you really don’t want to upset, if you know what I mean.”

“Yes, Ma’am, I do,” agrees Augustus. “Would look real bad, and only a few musicians were on this recording anyhow.”

“I’m going to have to let my management know there’s at least one illegal recording of my voice, and we’ll have to identify the rest.”

“Would Mr. Delamont be able to help identify anyone?” Eddie asks, “I know he’s management, not a musician, but he probably recognizes everyone’s sound?”

“Oh, yes, he can,” Junia says. “I’ll go see him now. Augustus, will you come? And these two officers should come, too, since the Commissioner’s already involved somehow.”

 

* * * * *

 

It’s basic human hubris that resolves it all, in the end. In a truly mythological sense, thinks Eddie, since there was actual flying and warnings involved.

She and Jamie had repeated every word they could remember of their conversation by the pool to Sam Delamont, in his office overlooking the Conservatory. At Jamie’s suggestion that the first sound they heard might have been a bird, Delamont looked up sharply.

“Did you check the trees?” he asked Augustus, who nods.

“Yes, Sir. My people shinnied up as high as a Marine can climb, and had a good look round on both sides of the electric fence.”

“Go higher. And check everything between the tear gas site and within twenty feet of the Conservatory windows. Look for something perched on top of every horizontal, invisible from the ground. The gas canister may be hanging high up, too.”

Jamie’s eyes widen. “A drone? Or drones?”

“That’s what I’m thinking,” Delamont says. “A remote mike attached to a drone. Bird-sized or smaller. Might even look like one from the ground. Easy to lift an empty tear gas can with a small drone, too.”

Augustus breaths deep, his chest heaving with anger, “So they send the drone with the mike into position, just before the open jam session. Then they heard Reagan and Janko talking, got spooked, and set off the tear gas. They could either hit you, and you’d call for assistance, or you’d radio across for backup. Either way, while everyone was on the ground looking around, the mike drone would be flying right overhead in the dark.”

“Black drone, black sky, no moon,” intones Junia, poetically.

“They didn’t expect Reagan to send everyone _away_ from the site, knowing it was a diversion. That would’ve spooked them,” says Delamont.

“You think they’ll try to reposition the mike drone again tonight?” Eddie asks Augustus. “Would they be that reckless?”

He nods.

“I’m counting on it. They got so close once, they’ll try again. Who knows how much they’re being paid, and from where? You were right, Officer Janko, nights like that are priceless. They’ll know we’re watching, but they don’t know where. They’ll have to stay close to that section of the fence, though. Drones that size don’t have a long range, and that bit of fence is the closest to the Conservatory.”

“As the drone flies,” says Delamont. “Right. Act as if this is really happening, Augustus. We’ll tell everyone afterwards that it was just a practice-drill now that the drone age is upon us. Junia, let’s you and me listen to this track again and see who we can pick out. They’ll have to know they were recorded.”

“Sir, I can have my father send over his CD,” Jamie offers. “This is just a short clip I have on my phone. The whole recording’s nearly an hour.”

“Will he be heartbroken?” Delamont cracks a grin. Jamie manages his first smile of the day.

“He will. He’s more of a jazz guy than even I knew, but he’ll be glad to have it out of his hands once he knows where it came from.”

“I’m glad to hear both of those things. The One PP has a helipad on the roof, correct?”

“Yes, Sir. Let me give you my father’s Executive Aide’s direct line to arrange that, and I’ll call him myself to grab the CD from home.”

“Well, then,” Delamont rubs his hands together and blinks behind his glasses. “It looks like all there is to do is wait. Let’s order lunch. You are all my guests.”

 

* * * * *

 

It’s over before eight p.m. on Saturday.

As soon as it’s properly, deeply dark, the evening ground patrols begin along the perimeter, like always, but a little more frequently tonight. Nothing unusual for the day after a prank.

Except high in the trees above the fence sits the smallest and lightest member of the security team, secured in a sling harness, thanking her lucky stars she has no fear of heights.

“In position,” Eddie whispers into her wrist, from under a non-reflective black balaclava cap.

“10-4,” Augustus’ voice sounds in her earpiece.

It’s not a long wait. In about ten minutes, she sees a tall, slender figure approaching, in the lenses of her infrared-vision binoculars. Just one, with a battery pack glowing warm from inside the backpack slung over his shoulder as he walks carefully between the trees outside the fence.

“Fifteen feet from fence. Ten. Backpack is on the ground. He’s looking around. He’s pulling out the unit. Go. GO. _Light him up_ ,” she hollers, finally.

Three Marines, who looked like tree-shapes and rock-shadows a second ago, emerge from the trees, and a fourth drops nearly on top of the kid, who screams.

“Lookin’ for this?” one of the Marines asks, holding up the remains of a crushed drone, the approximate size of a small blackbird.

The kid’s whining for his father before anyone lays a finger on him.

That would be Sam Delamont, the father of five unusually well-adjusted children, who have always been told they’ll have to learn to make their own fortunes, though they can always depend on their father’s support and guidance and a reasonable living allowance.

His youngest, clawing his way through the bottom rungs of a cut-throat digital era in the music industry, doesn’t hold with that philosophy, after all.

 

* * * * *

 

The card arrives at the One-Two two days after The Jam. It’s from Sam Delamont’s Manhattan office. It’s addressed to both of them, but it lands on Eddie’s desk, as “Janko” is sorted first in the mailroom.

Admiring the fine cream stationery, she decides not to rip open the envelope as she normally would, and fishes her knife out of her tactical bag instead. “I don’t think we’re in trouble. Any bets?”

“Christmas card,” Jamie shrugs. It’s the most likely answer, after all.

She slides her knife under the envelope seal, and it gives way easily, with the satisfying creaky scrape that comes from textured linen cardstock. She pulls out the matching card, and a folded, printed page comes with it. She spreads it out on the table and reads first the card and then the paper, eyes widening.

“What? Note from Delamont for being discreet about his kid’s arrest? Letter of commendation? Complaint?”

“You’re not going to believe it,” she says, her eyes dancing. She reads the printout again to be sure. Yes, it’s true. Somehow, a distant dream right off of her no-chance-this-lifetime list has come true. “We’re going to _Monticello_ , Jamie. Next May, as the Delamont’s guests. And we’re bringing the Mustang and Silver Belle.”

Monticello Motor Club in upstate New York is _the_ country club for sports car people, kart racers and auto enthusiasts in general. The Gold membership tier to which their host belongs begins at $13,000 per year, with a $150,000 initiation fee, plus extras. Among other country club amenities, full-service garage, car showroom and auto event days, the club has its own indoor and outdoor tracks. Members and guests can legally bring their personal vehicles and drive them to their technical speed limits, under professional instruction.

Jamie’s only ever heard about the club from his father, who was once invited to attend a fundraising day of kart races by the extremely wealthy children of even wealthier members. After that, Jamie and Joe used to pore over the website with something approaching actual lust. Even visiting as a guest required higher access than they could imagine for themselves.

He looks stunned, and then, as the idea settles in, like a kid in a candy store with a hundred dollar bill in hand. “No way.”

“Way,” she shows him the card as he jumps up to stand behind her, reading over her shoulder. “Augustus must have suggested it to Delamont. Is that not the ultimate dream date? They’re gonna _love_ a twenty year old Boxter in top condition, and your new baby Mustang. And just think – we may finally prove once and for all which one’s faster.”

“Or who’s the better _driver_.”

“Or whose car handles better on whatever track conditions we get that day…”

“Okay, it’s a draw, already.” He picks up the printed sheet and scans it quickly. “Eddie, Eddie, this is amazing. A tune-up and cleaning service, a race lesson, two hours of track time, lunch and dinner at the club, a demonstration race in the evening...”

“We are going to be so freakin’ high on adrenaline, we’re gonna be racing all the way home. Better bring your dad’s courtesy card.”

She flashes back to gregarious Officer Wong, explaining how he knew he’d marry his wife when he saw her going full-bore in police war games. Whatever idea she had about finding a public racetrack or a stock-car rally date for she and Jamie has _nothing_ on a day at Monticello.

“You sound pretty high already,” he teases, his voice sweet and sandpapery in her ear, the way it gets when he can barely contain himself.

Jamie’s phone buzzes on his hip, and he reaches for it. Scrolling through an e-mail, he shakes his head, still beaming, as if he can’t quite believe it.

“It’s Dad,” he says. “Delamont’s attaché just delivered a whole box set of legit recordings from the last twelve years of The Jam to his office, in return for him giving up his bootleg CD. Says that CD helped a whole lot of artists prove they had no knowledge of being recorded, and saved them from massive contract fines.”

 

* * * * *

 

She arrives in Katonah at eight o’clock on Christmas Eve, to find the house awash in light. Clusters of icy-blue dangling lights frame the front of the house, and the two bare-limbed Japanese maples out front glitter with tiny golden flickering ones that twinkle off a few large gold and silver orbs suspended from the branches. Through the living room window, a Christmas tree trimmed simply with white lights and gold ribbon bows shares space with a large ginger cat blinking at her from the sill. It’s far more tasteful than the display across the street, which involves an entire garden of inflatable reindeer and snowmen, and flickering flight lights and a red neon arrow on the chimney. The neighbors appreciate each other’s efforts. Katonah likes competitive displays.

“Eddie! Come on in. Merry Christmas.” Bradley kisses her cheek in greeting at the door. “Just you? I heard there might be some extra company this year.”

“Oh – no,” she says, “Jamie’s with all four generations of his family. Sort of hard to compete with that, but I hope you guys can meet soon.”

“Well, we’ll see what we can do to make up for our small numbers.”

Eddie, thinking of all her parents did to make up for their small numbers, merely smiles and lets Bradley lead her to the guest room. She’s glad that she’s their guest, and that this isn’t the house where she grew up. Had she known how many family ghosts were lingering in that house, she wouldn’t have been nearly as content there. But here, everything is modern and new, and Bradley adores her mother with an uncomplicated, undemanding affection that is exactly what Mira needs.

“Eddie?” her mother calls, coming down the hallway. “ _Xristos se rodi_ , darling.”

“ _Vaistinu se rodi_ , Mama. The place looks great. And smells great.”

“You are just in time to test the hors d'oeuvres for tomorrow.”

“Oh, good. I’ve been fasting since I left Manhattan.”

“A whole hour! You poor thing,” her mother smiles. Ever elegant, she looks younger than her years, in slim blue jeans, a white blouse and a classic fawn crew-neck sweater in good cashmere. Her dark hair, streaked with silver, is loose around her shoulders, cut almost exactly like Eddie’s is now. They both notice this and laugh. “If your hair was still brown, we’d look even more alike,” Mira notes, stroking Eddie’s hair as she pulls her into a hug.

“Yes, but you’ve got the height in this family.”

“Ah, well, your Nagymama Edit was only five feet, so you’re still taller than her. Now come into the kitchen and see what I’ve got waiting.”

Following the tantalizing scents of cinnamon and orange, pastry and butter, Eddie follows her mother. She thinks, for a moment, that Mira seems a little distracted, but that’s only to be expected, with all of the upheaval and extra work of Christmas.

As they round the corner, Mira takes a breath and calls out, “ _Su svi spremni?_ ”

“Is who ready?” Eddie asks, confused. The kitchen seems dark, and yet –

“ _Xristos se rodi_ _, rođaka Edit!_ ”

Mira flicks the kitchen lights on. On the counter are her laptop and Bradley’s, side by side and angled slightly toward each other. Each one shows a beaming face, about Eddie’s own age, that seem familiar to her, but she can’t place them. Apparently seeing her on their own screens at home, the man and woman wave to her.

“Cousin Edit, hello! I am Jelena. I am grandchild of Lizzie. That is my cousin Bojan. He himself is grandchild of Andrej. He is also police constable here in Belgrade! How small is the world!”

She’s speechless for a moment. “Hello!” she manages. “I had no idea I would be meeting you! _Vaistinu se rodi_ _!_ ”

Jelena, whose English is apparently quicker, translates for her cousin, who is currently across town from her in Belgrade.

“Told you we’d see what we could do about our small numbers,” Bradley says, putting a glass of red wine in her hand.

“Thanks,” she says faintly. She pulls up one of the kitchen stools and sits down, angling the two laptops so both of her cousins can get a decent shot of her face. Jelena definitely looks like a cousin, but Bojan looks like he might be her older brother, with the same short, round chin, the same nose and eyebrows.

“ _Tako je lepo videti te_ ,” she says. “It’s so good to see you. I can keep up with you in Serbian if we go slowly. Tell me all about yourselves!”

And for the next hour, they do. It’s not a time to dust off old family secrets, but to reach out and connect. Eddie’s never known any family members of her own generation, and it’s a strange sensation to think of these two growing up as cousins, playing in each other’s houses at the same time she was growing up here in Katonah. By the time they’ve gotten through a rapid retelling of each other’s life stories, mutual invitations to visit and two glasses of wine apiece, it’s three o’clock on Christmas morning in Belgrade, and her cousins are giddy with exhaustion. They’d stayed up all night just waiting for her to come through her mother’s door.

Jelena is an administrative assistant at a medical school. She’s married and has two small girls, aged seven and ten. She studied to be a biologist, but fell in love with a doctor, and so they could afford for her to stay at home with the children. She has recently returned to work, and thinks she might take some medical courses. She’s an avid reader, and she and Eddie share the same taste in international spy thrillers, to their amusement. The children are asleep, but Jelena shows photographs of them: solemn miniatures of their mother. Their father, the doctor, is a gentle bear of a man, bearded and smiling.

Bojan is a constable in the national police force, stationed in his hometown of Belgrade, but he’s worked all over the world as a UN peacekeeper, since Serbia joined the UN. He’s never married, but, he says, he is sure the right woman is out there waiting for him. He’s fascinated that she is dating her old police partner, and wants to know all about the NYPD’s system of partners. In Belgrade, he says, they work alone or in teams if the case requires it. He’s never considered asking one of the female constables on a date, he says, because they are very tough and they scare him.

At that, Eddie howls with laughter and explains that she’s tougher on the outside than Jamie, but he’s more resilient on the inside. Bojan listens attentively, and thanks her most courteously when she finishes.

After they end the call, with promises of another early in the New Year, Eddie turns to her mother, shaking her head in wonder.

“Mom, how did you even…”

“I told you I had two names. You’re not the only detective in the family – and the Internet is very fast these days. I e-mailed six people that I thought might be the ones. Bojan and Jelena wrote back right away and said they’d been hoping to find me for years. They, too, have family stories they have heard only small pieces of. Maybe the three of you can solve some mysteries. Two of you are police officers and one works at a medical school attached to a university – think how many resources you have between you!”

“You sure you want us to do that?” Eddie asks. “You can’t un-know things once you’ve found them out.”

“ _Volyenitchka_ , it’s time,” says her mother. “You want to bring your Jamie into the family, you should both know what that means.”

 

* * * * *

_I met my cousins!_ Jamie reads, just before he leaves the back seat of his father’s car. _We Skyped. They’re awesome. Have a great service. Love you._

He sends a string of hearts back to her, and steps out into the frosty night outside St. Xavier’s Church. The security detail nods a friendly reply to his thanks, closing the door behind him, and he falls in with his family, assembling together from three different vehicles.

Jack is standing on the street talking with his old friend Tasha, each of them obviously admiring the other’s dressed-up Christmas look. He’s finally taller than Jamie this year. Sean is nearly at his eye-level. Erin and his father will always tower over the rest, due to whatever quirk of genetics they inherited. He thinks of Eddie’s mysterious cousins, and wonders what she might be learning, right now, about her own family.

 _Their_ family. Nothing’s been said between them about that, not yet, but it’s clear they’re not planning on anything temporary. It might almost be worth it for the look on her face to spring a proposal on her on New Year’s Eve, but they’ve got enough major changes to deal with for their first year as a couple. He’s struck by a thought, though, and as he herds the younger Reagans in front of him, he turns it over in his head, and likes it more each time.

Not a proposal of marriage, not yet, but a promise of one to be made next New Year’s Eve, or put forward to the next New Year’s Eve, depending on where they are with their relationship. They’re cops, and they don’t like big surprises much, but they do like having the next step up to work towards.

“Oh, I know that look,” Danny says, beside him.

“What look?”

“That’s the look of a man looking around and wondering how he got so damn lucky.”

“Ah. Well, I can’t deny that.”

“I mean, she’s not even here with us, and you’re still looking like that.”

“We didn’t have smartphones when you and Linda were dating,” Jamie points out. “I’ve got her right here in my pocket.”

“Tasha’s family’s gonna sit in the pew front of us,” Jack informs them, with a slightly dazed look of his own. Sean groans as the sappiness of it all, and Erin and Nicky throw Tasha matching approving smiles.

And two hours later, Jamie does, in fact, hold down the number “1” on his phone, in the pocket of his wool overcoat, as they rise for the Doxology. He knows Eddie will hear the music, and the entire congregation singing together as they have for decades, most of them. She’ll know that he wants to share a little of why Church is important to him, especially tonight, and what it feels like to be sitting in the middle of it. Sometime she might want to feel it for herself, but if not, that’s something they’ll deal with.

For now, he knows she’s listening, right there with him every second as the confounding mysteries of difficult human journeys, strife, family and future swirl around them in the music.

_…et in terra pax,_

_homínibus bonæ voluntátis._

 

* * *

...to be continued in the New Year!


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A bonus New Year's Snippet! I couldn't just leave you all hanging. Happy New Year to you all, in whatever time zone you may be.

It’s No-Leave Eve.

The NYPD begins strategizing and allocating resources for New Year’s Eve beginning at nine o’clock on January 1st, three hundred and sixty four days in advance, to ensure there are no gaps in coverage of patrols or chains of command. The only cops not on duty overnight are those who just worked a full day shift, are already out sick or are high enough in the officer ranks that they have offices to shut down and staff to send home. Everyone else is out on the streets and the trains or staffing the offices. Even Frank Reagan is watching from his eyrie in the One PP, until two or three in the morning, with Garrett keeping him company in case there's a sudden need for the sort of media release nobody else wants to think about. 

As far as assignments go, Eddie thinks, they seriously lucked out this year. Even though she and Jamie are not supposed to be partnered up, it was generally agreed that they’d be far less conspicuous as a couple, than as single adults staring at the crowd all night.

They have the good fortune to be in plainclothes, too. Given their recent exposure at the Montauk New Music Festival, neither Renzulli nor the Undercover unit is taking many risks with them as potential tourist photo targets. They’re just a slightly dressed-up couple among thousands, hanging out at the edge of the crowd, occasionally walking up and down the street to keep warm, or standing up on benches and ledges and things to get a better view. They just happen to have two weapons and two pairs of cuffs apiece on them, Kevlar vests keeping them warm, and earpiece radios under their winter hats, instead of shoulder mikes.

They’ve been assigned an area near Rockefeller Center, between Fifth and Sixth Avenue. It’s just as crowded as the dreaded Times Square patrol, a few blocks away, but at least people are moving steadily here, circling the great Christmas tree in the square. There are more families here, rather than groups of friends planning to party and watch the ball drop. People here haven’t been corralled within gated sections since morning, as they have been in Times Square, and they’re rather more friendly as a result.

It’s been pretty peaceful, so far. She's spent a good half hour trying to teach Jamie to pronounce " _Srećna nova godina_ " properly, to greet her mother with when they drive out to Katonah tomorrow afternoon. They've intervened on three possible fights without even having to identify themselves as NYPD, and have quietly had a half dozen of the more violently drunk revellers picked up to ring in the new year from the Tank. Mostly they’re there to watch the crowd and surrounding area for thefts, medical distress, crowds turning surly, or, in the wake of the past years’ recordbreaking mass shootings, any gunfire from the tall buildings surrounding them.

Jamie takes her gloved hand in his, as they stand together across the street from the tree. Despite the harsh reality behind their presence there, or maybe because of it, it’s a magical view: a few thousand people from all the countries of the world, happily sharing in light and warmth, complete with real, proper snow coming down for the last hour or so.

Someone starts counting down at one hundred seconds from midnight. It doesn’t take long for the crowd to join in, circles of excitement spreading like ripples across a pond. A few noisemakers and poppers go off prematurely. Little kids who had fallen asleep in strollers or carriers wake up confused and disoriented, but they soon catch the spirit of the thing. There’s a lot of hugging going on.

Eddie looks up at the tree, a little misty-eyed. She’s been living in Manhattan for ten years now, and except for her first Christmas here, she’s tended to avoid the seasonal tourist stops. This winter has broadsided her in more ways than one, cracked her open a little so she could grow again. Being here with the man she loves is a gift she didn’t think she would ever feel she deserved, but here they are, together, with no secrets between them. Only stories to tell, and a lifetime of stories to gather.

The crowd reaches the minute mark, and the volume cranks up further. Jamie’s hand tightens slightly on hers, and she glances over at him. His eyes are calm as they usually are, steady on hers, but she knows that flicker that belies his deadpan expression. _You just have to know where to look_ , she thinks.

She realizes he’s both excited and nervous, shifting his feet. Ohh…he’s not going to, is he? He wouldn’t really? No, he avoids public drama, even if it wasn’t miles too soon, and there are hours to go before they’re off duty, anyway. What, then?

With a smooth tug of her hand, he pulls her into a graceful spin that lands her within the circle of his arms, her back to his front. She giggles as his cold nose finds her earlobe, and he laughs with her, dancing them side to side a little.

Forty seconds.

“Eddie, listen.”

At the tone of his voice in her non-radio ear, she stops giggling and starts listening in a hurry.

“I already know what you mean to me. I know it’s you I want to be with. But we’re just getting started, and next year’s already looking like a hell of a ride. We’re gonna have plenty to deal with just keeping each other flying straight. So what d’you say, New Year’s Eve _next_ year, right at midnight, wherever we are and whatever we’re doing, let’s – let’s decide then if we want to make it official, or give it another year. Whatever’s best for us.”

Ten seconds.

Her breath stops, choked on a wave of piercing happiness she never saw coming. She turns in his arms and looks up at him, feeling actual stars dancing in her actual eyes. Jamie looks at her through those killer lashes, as sweet and serious and terribly earnest as ever, and so giddy in love with her she doesn’t know how to process it. Trust him to find a practical and sensible way to sweep her off her feet.

Five seconds. The crowd is near hysterics. She slides her two hands up behind his neck and stands on tiptoe to kiss him, because she really can’t speak.

One!

He braces a strong arm around her shoulders, dipping her like a Silver Screen queen, and kisses her back like her very own leading man, his lips warm on hers, then oh my, his tongue, plundering her mouth hungrily. He’s not one to go that far in public, and _definitely_ not on duty, and it’s pretty damn hot. She feels drifting snowflakes tickling her face, and smiles, and concentrates on kissing him as the crowd roars. Not for them – it’s 2018, and everyone around them is grabbing and kissing each other.

But only she’s kissing Jameson Reagan, and he’s kissing her foggy.

He lets her up, and she gasps a quick laugh and rearranges her hat before burrowing into his arms.

“That was a yes, by the way,” she tells him. “In case you were unclear on my signals.”

“I think I got most of your signals by now,” he assures her.

“It’s a very good idea.”

“Well, I hoped so.”

She takes a deep, mind-clearing breath of the crystal-cold air. “A whole year, huh?” she asks, sliding a sly glance up at him.

“Well, anything can happen. You know there are no absolutes in our job,” he grins back.

“I do know. That's why I need you.”

“How 'bout that. That's why I need _you_.”

“Happy New Year, partner."

“Happy New Year.”

 

* * * * *


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Of Family, Epiphany and Epiphanies.

* * *

“Oh, who’s a smarty-pants, huh? Can’t fool you! Object permanence, kiddo.”

“¿ _Quién es ese_?” Angela murmurs to her son. “¿ _Esa es la Tía Eddie_?”

Little Eddie shrieks with toothless glee in his mother’s lap and waggles his arms and feet. Officer Eddie, looking every inch the doting auntie that Angela calls her, peeks out from behind her hands and laughs back at her accidental namesake.

It’s Friday afternoon, and Angela has proudly invited them over to her and Manuel’s pristine little apartment for a mug of champurrado after work, to celebrate the new year. It’s her great-grandmother’s recipe, made with dark chocolate, cinnamon and whole milk, thickened with corn flour and whipped smooth and frothy. It’s spicy perfection on a bitterly cold day.

Jamie, sitting next to his old partner on the Alvarez’ couch, tries to repress a grin out of habit, and gives it up as a lost cause. Watching his tough girl melt into a puddle is always a good time, if only for the endless potential for ribbing her about it later. Besides, Little Eddie – Eddito, to his parents – is a special case.

They’d sorted out the name thing on their first visit to the Alvarez’ cozy caretaker’s apartment on the ground floor, armed with diapers and wipes, when Eddito was just a week old. Angela and Manuel had been so mortified that Jamie almost wished he’d said nothing, but it would have been worse to let the mix-up continue. Eddito was eventually named James Eddie Alvarez, to everyone’s satisfaction, at a gala Christening Mass in the local community of Mexican Catholic refugees, where Jamie and Eddie were treated like long-lost cousins.

Eddito has since gotten used to regular visits with _Tío_ Jamie and _Tía_ Eddie, who are second only to a pair of guardian angels and Santa Claus in the Alvarez’ book.

The little boy, now a properly chubby sixteen-pounder with a mass of dark curls and brilliant shiny eyes, will always be the first baby he ever caught in his own two hands. There are some shared experiences you never forget. Unless your neural networks aren’t fully developed and capable of memory-formation yet, that is. But Jamie’s sure that Eddito will be told the story of his precipitous birth in a movie theatre many, many times.

Naturally, he is the strongest, smartest, most handsome and most well-behaved baby in the world, as far as his doting parents are concerned. They’re convinced it’s due to the influence of the two officers who delivered him.

“Oh, no! Come here.”

Eddito reaches eagerly towards Officer Eddie, and Angela passes him over gratefully so she can go and change out of yet another spat-up shirt. The baby has unerring aim: anywhere except where there’s a burp rag waiting. This time he’s only hit his mother and not his own onesie, so Eddie scoops him up under the arms, carefully, and lifts him to standing on her knees. He’s already holding his head up well, as Angela has showed her proudly – and he shrieks again. He reaches for the loose golden hair bouncing at her shoulders by instinct, and Eddie quickly settles him side-saddle on her lap to swoop a wet-wipe around his mouth before he has time to fuss. Angela keeps her hair up and out of reach of grabby little hands, but Eddie’s never so much as babysat an infant, and this is all very new. No matter. She and Eddito enjoy practicing on each other.

“That’s a good look on you, partner.”

Eddie throws him a complex glance over the baby’s head. “I think he’s what they call an easy keeper. Aren’t you?” she croons to the baby. “But _four_? How on earth did your mother manage?”

“Well, we were spaced out. At least the big two and the little two. Danny and Erin helped a lot with Joe and me, I know. And Grandma was a big presence, even when Dad and Grandpa were off doing the typical dad-at-work thing.

“Thank God these two can work from home and take turns with the baby.”

“It’s pretty amazing. They’re right to hold you responsible for that, Eddie. I don’t know where they’d be without you talking Ken Cooper into hiring them on.”

Eddie blushes slightly and drops a kiss onto the baby’s curls, and startled, he tries to look up. They end up bumping noses, and, it’s a whole new game.

Angela, coming back from the bedroom, laughs with delight, whips out her new smartphone and takes a shot of the two Eddies enjoying each other’s company. She turns a sly grin to Jamie.

“She’s good with baby, no?”

“She’s a natural,” Jamie replies. “So how was your Christmas, you and Manuel? Did you get to call your family over the holidays?”

“Oh, yes! We talked to my mother and my sisters, and Manuel’s mother and father. And I e-mail photos to everyone at home! Since we must have smartphones for our job here, Mr. Kenneth the owner, he helped us to sign up. Because, you know, we must send him pictures of things to be repairing or show when work is done. So we have phones with camera and e-mail now. Mama and Papi are so relieved to see we are all safe.”

By “safe”, Jamie knows, Angela means “unharmed”.

Last Christmas, Angela and Manuel had explained, they had a lovely house of their own, two cars, family and friends and a big church community around them. They had antique furniture and original paintings from both of their families on display in their home, and they loved to take their turn hosting family dinners. Angela worked for a big hospital in their equipment-purchasing office, and Manuel worked for the city as a civil engineer in highway maintenance. They learned they were expecting a baby, and their happiness knew no bounds.

Then the drug cartel war came to their town. They’d stayed under the radar until a hostage-taking and medical supply theft at the hospital placed Angela in the position of having to decide whether to obey the attackers or refuse to give them the drugs and medical equipment they demanded, for an underground clinic.

Stubborn, indignant and with a moral compass that would not be compromised, she’d refused, She’d somehow been let go with a nasty slash on her arm as a warning, and made to leave. Perhaps they’d been impressed with her courage. Angela has a theory that she reminded a few of them of their own mothers. Any one of them might have shot her, at any moment.

As it was, someone else in her office gave them what they wanted. She and Manuel left town that same night, smuggled through a tortuous series of footpaths and anonymous cash-paid bus trips until crossing the border into Texas, and running as far east as they could before her pregnancy became too unwieldly. Their house and cars they’d left to whichever family members might choose to stay in town.

Now Angela is so proud of just keeping her family alive and together, having a phone number and a job, that Jamie finds himself wracking his brain for any strings he might pull with Immigration that he hasn’t thought of yet. The city needs hardworking, immovably good-hearted people like Angela and Manuel. He’s learned a lot more than he ever wanted to about the drug cartels dividing up the villages and even the larger cities of Mexico for their own profits, forcing honest citizens to join them, assist them, or quite literally be slaughtered where they stand if they refuse.

Trying to explain that to Immigration agents is a different story. ICE tends to insist that drugs cartels are not a reason to be granted refugee asylum because “If you don’t get involved with drugs, you’ll stay out of trouble” and “We can’t just babysit all the good guys while the bad guys take over.”

Thanks to Erin’s network, they have at least found a professional Immigration Advocate to work with the family, as part of her pro bono legal work. The advocate, Hetty, is about as hopeful for the Alvarez’ as any other honest, employed family she’s worked with, which is to say, she’s clinging largely to hope.

“It’s a funny thing,” Hetty told Jamie and Eddie, “that ICE will often ignore indigent farm laborers and the lowest level of exploited illegal workers, but as soon as a family looks like it might actually get on its feet, get some power and stability behind them – boom, it’s deportation time. Can’t have them turning into actual voting citizens. We’re actually lucky that the Alvarez’ are still in the refugee-hearing stream, not a DACA family. I’ve got college-educated DACA kids on my list who want nothing more than to serve this country, being threatened with 24-hour deportation windows. Try studying for your final exams with that over your head. But they do it.”

“Then the least we can do is exhaust every possible channel.”

Watching the Eddies play together while Angela laughs and films a short clip of them, Jamie takes a deep breath and feels a moment of amazement. All the turmoil, religious wars and persecution that drove all of their families to the same city, leading their paths to cross at Eddito’s birth.

What would it be like, he wonders, to have to flee his comfortable New York existence and his entire family overnight with a pregnant Eddie, to have to trust in one shady contact after another to make it as far as, say, Canada, with no guarantee of what might happen even if they made it across the border?

Somehow, he and Eddie have taken it upon themselves to guard everyone in this city, all the newcomers and the long-time New Yorkers and the millions of visitors, and keep them safe to live without constant fear. Some days it seems more daunting than others.

It’s so much easier when it’s not personal. But these connections are what give him focus when his energy flags.

Manuel arrives home then with groceries for a typical Mexican dinner, purchased fresh and in small quantities. They’ll never get used to these huge boxes of American food, he and Angela swear. He stands in the doorway and smiles shyly at them all, his English not being nearly as fluid as his wife’s, and Angela bustles up to take the groceries to the kitchen. Eddie holds up Eddito for him, and Manuel is suddenly all confidence verging on machismo.

Holding his son on his hip, Manuel makes a strong-arm curl and then pretends to make the baby do the same. The baby squeals to see his father, and Manuel cuddles him close and dances him around. The two clearly adore each other.

Jamie catches Eddie eyeing him just as closely as he was watching her, earlier.

Yeah, he felt it, too.

It’s like a physical twinge in his own arms, watching Manuel with his son. Not always, but…it’s there. And it’s a significant part of the reason why they’re genuinely happy to visit regularly.

 

* * * * *

 

They’re in an old studded-leather clad booth along the side wall of Finnegan’s, she, Erin and Nicky, sitting over whiskey at eight o’clock on a dreary, rainy Saturday night. The faux-Tudor Irish pub is warm inside, dimly lit and loud with chatter and the click of pool cues from the back, but the three of them have each other’s full attention. It’s partly in celebration, partly in commiseration, and partly to remind each other they’ve got each other’s backs.

A proper girls’ session out, in other words.

“It’s called _Nollaig na mBan_ ,” Erin explains, “Nulla-na-mon. Women’s Little Christmas. January sixth was supposed to be a day for Irish women in some villages to leave the housework behind after slogging through the holidays, and get together for food and drink. They’d stay in the pubs all afternoon, catching up. Supposedly, the men were supposed to be doing the cooking and watching the kids, but I’ve never been convinced that part actually happened. I’m betting the mothers just cooked ahead and told them to grab leftovers, as usual. It’s having a bit of a resurgence among the brunch crowd now. Mothers and daughters, college girls away from home, that sort of thing.”

“It’s Serbian Christmas, tonight, too,” says Eddie. “I had a good Skype chat with my cousins last night, and Jamie got to meet them, too. It’s called Epiphany most places, but the Eastern Orthodox churches still call it Christmas.”

“Well,” Nicky raises her glass, “Happy Little Christmas Epiphany, whatever you’re celebrating.”

They clink glasses. Nicky takes too big a sip of her Bushmills and tries to mask a sputter, which just makes it worse, and Erin pats her back, trying not to laugh.

“When d’you get your exam back?” Eddie asks. It’s been three days since Nicky wrote the intake exam for the NYPD, and Nicky is still buzzing. Erin has her game face on, and is smiling wistfully, but Eddie can tell she’s got pride warring pretty hard with worry, hidden away from her daughter as best she can.

“Another week, I think. I can’t wait. I know I did well, I just don’t know how well. Grandpa was amazing. He had me come up and study with him.”

“He did, did he?” Erin asks. Nicky covers her mouth.

“Oops.”

Erin grins, looking very like her daughter, “I _know_ , kiddo, believe me. I’d have been surprised if he didn’t. Though I wish he’d have asked me first.”

“He didn’t have to ask. I’m an adult.”

“I’m also your mother, and he’s my dad.”

“You know, even if you aced it completely, it still doesn’t mean you have to go further,” Eddie points out. “I know a bunch of people who started at Academy, and just knowing they _could_ be good cops turned out to be enough for them. They just wanted to know that the choice was theirs to make, not anybody else’s.”

“Oh, I’m pretty sure. But yeah, I guess you never know what you’re gonna come up against that you didn’t expect to hit you so hard.”

“That’s still a big part of it for me,” Eddie admits. “Wanting to know my limits. So far there hasn’t been anything I really, truly couldn’t handle, but there’s always cases that come back to haunt you.”

“Everyone says when you stop feeling that, then you should start worrying, ‘cause it means you’re shutting down.”

“Everyone who says that is right,” Erin says. “You’re old enough to know that your Uncle Danny’s been dealing with PTSD since his second tour in Afghanistan. Probably his first, actually. I think he re-upped for a second tour to try to lay some demons to rest. He is not the same big brother I grew up with. That thing he does where he goes distant and solves cases literally in his nightmares? It makes him a really successful detective, and it’s nearly torn him apart. More than once.”

“Mom...”

“I’m just saying, these are things to know going in.”

Eddie’s glad Erin’s taking the hardline approach, since she herself would feel awkward doing so. Nicky’s very focused, but she’s also an idealist. She’s been raised with a unique combination of normalization of the realities of the job, and protection from the real impact on her own family. The Reagans are very good at abstractedly talking about massive emotional issues, to the extent that Nicky seems to think it’s in her DNA to deal with them with less difficulty than most. It’s not. She’ll have to find her own way through, and the moments of disillusion will be bitter.

Nicky’s going to be riding with Walsh and Addison for a series of tours, and then Patimkin and Russell, all of them night shifts. And this time, as an adult and a Cadet candidate, nobody’s going to screen her from anything, even as a civilian. Nicky’s lucky. Not every candidate gets nudged into so much pre-Academy exposure, and every little helps.

She’s also going to start coming to fight nights with her and Walsh, on Tuesdays and Thursdays, alternating boxing, kickboxing and the police judo and weaponless defense classes at the two-five.

“It ain’t pretty,” Eddie warns her, “We fight for real. There’s bloody noses and torn muscles and things, so you might want to resist going full-bore until you’ve passed your police physical. You don’t want to have to take time off training to heal up from anything. But we can sure teach you stuff, and it’s great conditioning. Hell of a lot more fun than a treadmill, any day.”

“It’s cool that it’s all women,” Nicky says, “But don’t you have to learn to fight adult men?”

“Oh, we do. It’s only kickboxing that’s women-only, mostly because it’s specifically a women’s class for strength and balance training – and we need _some_ space to let off estrogen. You should totally come. It’ll take your mind of waiting for your results. The boxing class and judo are for any NYPD. We’ll get you in, though, no problem.”

“I used to go to that, you know,” Erin tells her daughter, “Before I went off to college. Your Grandpa and Uncle Danny made me take self-defence and judo classes. And Danny taught me some moves Grandpa wouldn’t half approve of.”

“Aw, they didn’t do that for me when I left.”

“You were living close to home. You were just a short drive away if you ever needed us. And they knew by then that I wouldn’t be getting any Academy training, so they’d better teach me themselves.”

“How did you know?” Nicky asks, “I know you thought about it, too. How did you know you didn’t want it?”

“I did want it. There were times I wanted it really, really badly,” Erin admits, “I’d have been good at some of it, but it wasn’t for me, not the whole package. I knew I’d get through training, maybe even last a year or two, but I also knew I’d never learn to let things go. Any bad call, any case that slipped away, everything I saw that I _couldn’t_ help with. I know you remember what that’s like, Nicky. And this is going back more than twenty years. Things aren’t perfect for female cops even now, but back then, they were way worse. I had to pick the fights I had a hope of winning.”

“You’re more disciplined than I am,” Nicky says, “I know you worry about that. About me listening to orders. But that’s part of what I need, I think. I do better when I have high expectations put on me.”

“Sounds like your Uncle Jamie,” Eddie points out. “He doesn’t like to admit it, but he’s pretty driven by being given a bar to reach. So he can jump clear over it and pretend like he never saw it. Like it was his idea all along.”

“That does sound like Jamie,” Erin smiles. “You know him well.”

“I think he’s figured out I use it sometimes,” she admits. “I mean, four and a half years, ten hours a day in a car together, plus whatever else after shift...you’d think we wouldn’t have any secrets left. But there’s always new things to find out.”

She knows she’s got a goofy grin and a whiskey flush on her, but she doesn’t care. She can’t seem to help talking about Jamie, and certainly not with Erin and Nicky, who are so damn happy to see them finally together.

“Well, you’re sure gonna find out some stuff tomorrow,” says Erin. Nicky sighs, afloat on whiskey, post-exam adrenaline and the prospect of Eddie finally joining them for Sunday dinner after Church.

“Okay. Coach me. What do I need to know?” Eddie asks.

“The more Grandpa and Pop yell at each other, the better they like it,” Nicky says. “Also, sometimes they gang up and try to trick people into saying stuff, to make it like a test of what people really think.”

“Well, that’s certainly going in at the deep end,” Eddie says, “Erin? Any pointers?”

“If Pop offers you more than two refills of wine, watch out,” Erin tells her, “It means he’s going to grill you about something after dinner.”

“If people go into the kitchen and close the door, or if people offer to do the dishes, just leave them alone, ‘cause it means it’s a private conversation,” Nicky adds.

“Ah. That’s useful to know. Thank you.”

“It’s okay to talk about Linda and Joe,” Erin says, seriously. “And Mom and Grandma. Most Sundays it’s just a good time to reconnect and be able to talk cop and DA stuff within confidence, without worrying about anything leaking out. Sometimes it’s a way to force everyone to sit down and listen to hard stuff.”

“Oh, yeah, and what gets said at the table stays at the table,” Nicky recites. Erin and Eddie snicker.

“I just bet,” Eddie says.

“Hey, wouldn’t it be cool if Jack and Sean’s girlfriends ever came out with us like this someday?”

“It would indeed,” Erin agrees, with a sigh. “And then there’ll be no more kids left. Until the next generation.”

“Hm,” Nicky takes another sip. “I’m gonna wait on that a while.”

“You do that, please.”

Eddie notices that Erin is strenuously avoiding eye contact with her, her gaze roaming around the bar instead, and decides to take pity on her. “We’ve just barely started talking about any of that,” she tells her, “But it’s on the books. Sometime. Don’t know when, but...sometime.”

“I bet not too long, though,” Nicky blurts out, feeling her whiskey a little. Erin sends her a look, and Nicky subsides. “Sorry, I just...”

“No, no. It’s okay. I honestly don’t know. But I’m looking at thirty-three soon, so...it’ll happen when it’s supposed to. We’re not worried.”

Erin sends her an eloquent look that clearly says, _yeah, Nicky’s right_ , and Eddie takes an inhale and another sip.

If it happens, they know, it’ll be fine, and they’ll deal with it, but it shouldn’t, not with her level of contraception set to Paranoid. They both have more to do and things to plan out before then. She wouldn’t mind being married beforehand. Even being in a relationship in which babies are occasionally discussed is enough of a leap for now. They already know that once they decide they’re ready, they’re not going to waste any time. They’re not getting any younger.

“Would that make me an Aunt? No, they’d still be my cousins. Just way younger.”

“I don’t think you’re going to be an Aunt,” Erin says, “Even if Jack and Sean have kids of their own, they’d be your first cousins once removed, not nieces or nephews.”

“Wait, I might still be an Aunt,” Nicky realizes, “What if Dad ever re-marries, or – or just ends up having other kids with someone?” She looks quickly at her mother, “He doesn’t, does he?”

“Not that I’m aware of,” Erin says firmly, “And I think your dad realizes that that’s not the sort of thing he’d ever want to keep from me if he has any hope of my protecting him from Danny and Pop if they found out first.”

“You can talk about Aunt Linda and Uncle Joe and the rest,” Nicky explains to Eddie, “But we don’t talk about my dad at dinner.”

“Sadly true,” Erin agrees. “It tends to lead to three hours of Jack’s Not So Greatest Hits.”

“But a great diversion if you need to take the heat off yourself,” Nicky says, with a sly sideways grin that says that she’s pulled that one off before.

“You’re cut off,” says Erin.

Eddie gives an amused snort. “There speaks a fellow only-child.” She clinks Nicky’s glass.

“I’m outnumbered here,” Erin sighs. “ _Some_ of us had to be the responsible older sister.”

“Well, I’ve always been the responsible older cousin. And at least we’ll have one more woman at the table tomorrow. That’ll give us, what, three to six?”

“Slowly but surely,” Erin says, “Slowly but surely. What time is that brother of mine picking us up?

“Sometime after ten. At least, he said his boxing session’s over at nine-thirty.”

“Oh, good,” Erin gets up slowly, her hands digging into her lower back as she rubs at a sore spot. She’s had a long week of essentially living at her desk, Eddie knows, and worrying about her detective, Abetemarco, while he recovers from a shooting on duty. Erin needed tonight more than she and Nicky. “Round four. My round again.”

“I could get used to this,” Nicky says, looking around the bar. “Is this what after-shift drinks are like?”

“Ha! No. After-shift drinks are bloodlettings and therapy. Cops turn into family, sure, and safe spaces come in all shapes and sizes, but you and your mom are the real deal.”

It strikes Eddie that the NYPD is the closest thing she has to a family to introduce to the enthusiastic Nicky, for all Nicky’s eagerness to welcome Eddie into hers. It’s certainly good to play an active role in another young woman’s entry into The Job, but it’s not the same as the openhearted welcome she’s received from all of the Reagans. She wishes the comparison wasn’t so stark. But if she can help keep an eye on Nicky for the first few years of her career, and maybe Jack, at least she’ll feel like she’s offered something in return.

“Well,” says Nicky, “You and Mom aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. So I think we should keep doing this. Maybe not always drinking all the time, but...”

“I’ll drink to that,” says Eddie.

 

* * * * *

 

“Everyone come and siddown!” Danny yells from the kitchen, pushing open the door with his elbow as he appears with a gorgeously browned shoulder of beef in a well-loved Dutch oven. A cloud of rosemary and roasted vegetables wafts behind him in his wake, and her mouth waters as Jack follows with the largest serving-dish of mashed potatoes she’s seen outside of a restaurant. Nicky brings up the rear with garlicky green beans and carrots.

The years of solitary, one-dish meals in front of her laptop fade away into distant memory.

“I could get used to this,” she remarks to Jamie, as they follow Frank and Henry to the dining room from the front sitting room, glasses of wine in hand.

“Winter food,” he says. “Erin’ll have us on salads and beans and fish before long.”

“Do you have a specialty, Eddie?” Frank asks her. “We may have our habits, but we’re always on the lookout for new options.”

“I, ah – I used to,” she says, thinking fast as she sits down between Jamie and Sean, across from Danny. “I’ve been living alone for so long that I haven’t really had a chance to do a really great meal for a while. But my Dad and I used to make my grandmother Edit’s chicken paprikash over homemade noodles. That’s about the only family recipe I’ve got.”

“Ooh,” Nicky’s eyes widen, “Like in _Dracula_?”

“Yes, actually! We use this smoked Hungarian paprika. It’s completely different from the stuff you get at the store.”

Nicky smiles and sends her a wordless eye-signal she can’t quite pick up on, until she sees that Erin and Danny are smiling amusedly too, their hands folded for Grace. _Oh_. This is going to take some getting used to. She certainly has nothing against anyone saying Grace, and she’s very conscious of feeling more grateful than she has for a long time, but a religious focus for that gratitude in public still feels pretty strange to her.

She listens to Frank reciting what must be an old family prayer, and is just thinking of how comforting it sounds, when they all, Jamie, included, cross themselves and say “Amen,” and she’s left floundering again. Jamie had explained their usual habits beforehand, of course, and had assured her that they’d had plenty of non-Grace-saying guests at dinner before, but she feels suddenly, visibly not part of the proceedings.

Nobody else even blinks, though, and she’s immediately treated as long-lost family member, which warms her thoroughly. She’s even roasted gently over “landing” her very first police partner. When she rolls her eyes Nicky-style and replies, “Well, I _tried_ a while back, but someone here needed to think about it some more…” the whole table cackles good-naturedly, and Jamie ducks his head and shrugs and smiles, not at all put out.

Danny’s roast is at one tender and toothsome. He’s taken to squawking over anyone interfering in his cooking, and he’s getting really good. He seems to be finding solace in his grief by stepping into Linda’s kitchen habits, which, Eddie thinks, is about as healthy and loving an outlet as she can imagine him finding.

Nobody mentions her not attending church, or anything about their morning at Mass at all. She knows from Jamie that the sermon was a repeat: a reminder that charity tends to wane after Christmas despite the continuing needs of the greater community. She wonders if they’re avoiding talking about church so as not to exclude her, and she decides that’s probably so. Remembering Sean and Jack’s easy grip on theological family discussions, she can’t help but think that they’d all be discussing the sermon or debating some point of faith, if she wasn’t present.

As it is, the dinner-table debate on Stop-and-Frisk, or as Jamie quietly and consistently points out, Stop- _Question_ -and-Frisk, rages on.

Henry is convinced that letting cops trust their guts among the public has saved lives, especially in high-crime areas. He doesn’t care if those communities have a particular ethnic majority or not, but they have to accept increased policing and law and order as a necessary part of cleaning up their act. Danny backs his grandfather on this one hundred percent.

Nicky throws racial profiling into the conversation, and the need for the NYPD to earn trust among newcomers in low-income areas, who have no reason to trust cops at all, given the places they’ve arrived from.

“How is that our fault?” Sean counters, from beside Eddie. “They chose to come here, right?”

Eddie thinks the Alvarez family might have something to say about that. They were so secure in their middle-class respect for the law that it had never occurred to Angela not to call the police for help, even as an illegal refugee from Mexico. It’s pure chance that Eddie and Jamie got the call and not some other cop who might have treated them harshly. There are, she admits, plenty of blatantly racist cops, and many more who just don’t want to take the time to consider their own assumptions.

“Don’t you think that if cops expect people to behave like good Americans, they should represent the best America has to offer, too?” Nicky shoots back. “How is telling someone you don’t like the way they look at you, and you’re gonna search them or arrest them if they argue supposed to accomplish that?”

Erin and Jamie, side by side, tag-team each other with a pile of recent stats that show that _reducing_ Stop-Question-and-Frisk has, in fact, lowered police callouts to crimes in progress, and _increased_ proactive calls from the public to help them reduce potential problems, especially in areas that now have NYPD-Community Consultation groups.

“Who let you two go to law school?” Henry grumbles, and turning to smile sweetly at her, asks what she and Jamie have brought for dessert.

“Peach pie and two kinds of ice cream,” Eddie reports. “Will we be debating the merits of each kind, or pie without ice cream?”

Frank, up at the other end, seems to be permanently beaming.

After dinner, she, Erin and Sean hang out in the sitting room, watching Jamie and Henry advance upon each other across the checkers board as though they’re settling an old duel.

Except for chess, which they play with gravitas and polite chat, the Reagans get into board and card games in a robust, physical way. Old-world pub style. Gestures get large and remarks get ribald as the level in their glasses sinks. Spectators walk around like a Greek chorus, commenting pithily on each player’s chances of winning, and counting up all the games they’ve lost before. Stories and old family fights get retold and re-enacted in between moves.

“Feeling the heat, there, son?” Henry challenges, “You can always forfeit.”

“Not in this lifetime,” Jamie mutters.

“Edit, you play?” Henry asks. He’s apparently decided that her given name makes a better nickname. She’s completely taken with the way he says her given name, and he knows it, she decides, seeing the twinkle in his eye over the board.

She smiles back. She can’t help it. Henry turns her to mush. She can only imagine what he’d have been like as a cop, back in the day, and she glances up at Jamie, the incumbent Officer Reagan of outstanding charm.

“Not since I was little.”

“Come sit by me,” Henry says. “I’ll get you caught up.”

And for the next few minutes, he does, explaining every move he makes. It doesn’t seem to affect his and Jamie’s game in the least – rather, they both have to work harder to outwit each other. Eddie suddenly sees that it’s not a child’s game at all, but a game of spacing and timing and anticipating where a piece _will be,_ rather than where it is.

Henry sees the penny drop, and claps her on the shoulder. “Ah-hah,” he says. “You get it. That’s why I taught all the kids to play from a young age. It’s all about taking control of a scene.”

“Whoa,” she says. “I mean, I knew chess was the ultimate military strategy game, but I didn’t think of checkers.”

“Chess is a battle between equal and diverse forces. Checkers is your callout to a robbery in progress.”

“I’m getting that.” She looks up again at Jamie, who has been listening to his grandfather with equal attention, and at Erin, who looks a little misty around the eyes. “This is the stuff you were raised on, huh?”

“Pretty much,” Erin says.

“Got us into law school,” Jamie digs, “So, thanks again, Pop.”

As they’re heading out into the evening later on, Henry walks her to the door on his arm. “I hope we’ve behaved ourselves sufficiently well,” he says. “We’d love you to see you next week.”

“I’d be delighted,” she tells him. “And never behave yourself on my account.”

“Oh, now you’ve done it,” Frank says gruffly, waiting at the door, and bends to kiss her on the cheek. “Good night, Eddie.”

 

* * * * *

 

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey, Sunshine. You brought company!”

Jamie stands somewhat awkwardly behind Eddie at the door of the pale green and gray Visitor Center at Fort Dix Correctional Institution. He’d been screened two weeks in advance, like any visitor here. Every prisoner knows who’s on the schedule to visit whom, via the internal grapevine, so it’s not surprise but genuine pleasure that has Armin Janko grinning like Christmas morning. And indeed, given the traditional Hungarian Christmas date of January 6th, they’re not that late.

Armin looks well, if a little thinner of waist and hair than the last time they met. They’re not supposed to hug in the visitor’s lounge, but a brief handshake is allowed. Eddie and her father manage to say a great deal with that handshake, and then Jamie finds himself in Armin’s solid grip. He remembers that strength of that clasp from years before, Eddie in her father’s arms as Armin was being released from the hospital.

He also remembers the desperate need radiating from Eddie as she hugged her father for the first time in years, and then her silent, shaking tears as she stared out the window as they drove away.

That night was the second time Eddie asked him to stay with her. They’d both pretended to fall asleep talking curled up on her bed, to avoid silly arguments over the couch, and migrated under the covers at some point. That was the first time he woke up with Eddie fast asleep in his arms. Between that, finding the proof of Armin’s courage and honesty, and Eddie’s trust in him, Jamie had been buoyant for days.

This time there are no tears. Eddie’s been writing to her dad regularly since then, and more often in the past year as his release date approaches. He’s recently been allowed to send and receive heavily vetted e-mail through the prison communications system. She visits every few months. They’ve been able to clear some old ground, and start to discuss Armin’s post-release life.

“Come in, please, sit down.” Armin waves them to the little round table as if they’ve just dropped in for coffee.

They don’t exactly pull out chairs, as the seats are solid steel and bolted to the concrete floor. They thank Armin profusely for the coffee, which he’s paid for out of his own meagre earnings in the prison laundry – there is cheap vending machine coffee available for guests, but it’s so important to Armin that he have something to offer them. And it’s half decent coffee, too, made by the inmates who work in the kitchens, along with cupcakes and pretzels and other treats for visiting days.

Eddie selects a cupcake and drops some change in the tin at the counter, before coming to sit beside her father.

“So I hear you did good work out at the jazz retreat,” Armin says.

“Apparently so. How do you know?” Eddie asks.

“Ah, I still have contacts. My old friend Ken Cooper got to wondering if I had put you up to your little stunt with the caretaker’s job in one of his buildings, and phoned me up to ask. Told me he’d sent you two out there to work off your end of the bargain.”

“Oh.” Eddie smiles sheepishly. “I guess I did sort of ambush him. But he seemed pretty happy to have a chance to do something good for someone who deserved it.”

“No doubt. But now the little family you helped is in his debt. And he sent you to that festival on purpose, you know. Sam Delamont wanted people with no previous connections to any of his security staff. He thought he might have an industry leak close to home, but he didn’t know _how_ close. His own kid, poor bastard. You I can trust, Princess. More than I trust myself.”

He turns his smile on Eddie, who looks both touched and disturbed.

It’s Jamie’s turn to ask: “Wait. How could you know about the kid? There haven’t even been any charges laid yet. Nothing’s public.”

“I’m in a medium security facility with a whole lot of bored people. Intelligence is currency around here. I’m going to miss the access, to be honest, when I’m gone. You wouldn’t believe what you can learn.”

“Nothing too useful, Dad, I hope,” Eddie replies, with a bit of an edge.

“Actually, I think I _can_ be useful,” Armin replies, without the slightest indication of offense. He leans forward and wraps his hands around his paper coffee cup as if it’s a proper mug, from old habit. “I know you’re worried about what I’m gonna do with myself when I’m paroled. I know there are things I’ll be barred from doing, and for good reason. I have no quarrel with that, though it’s a shame I can’t use my professional skills. I want to talk to you about something. I’ve developed a talent for laundry.”

Jamie opens his mouth, closes it, and looks to Eddie for a hint. She shrugs and turns back to her father, unwrapping her cupcake.

“Okay. Spill. I’m assuming you’re only talking about washing machines.”

“Commercial laundry is one of the invisible backbones of capitalism. Think about it. Not just hotels, restaurants, hospitals and military, but everywhere. Dirty linen means no repeat customers.”

“That’s true, but even middle sized commercial services have been bought up and consolidated, except for the little mom-and-pop shops. There’s even a middle tier of laundry collection and drop off services that don’t even do the work – it’s all outsourced. Are you looking at niche markets?”

Jamie blinks. He forgets sometimes that Eddie’s first career was in financial market analysis. Spending all her days driving around at street level, she sees the ebb and flow of local business in a way he doesn’t.

“I like how you’re thinking, but no. Take a step back, instead. You see, it gets really boring, working in the laundry here. I mean, talking-to-yourself boring, chanting-nursery-rhymes boring. And one day I had this revelation. I was doing a load of jumpsuits, and I noticed Jacobsen had been taking his meds regularly again. How’d I know? Because his suits were all dirty on the behind, like with actual topsoil. That meant he’d been let out for exercise every day, instead of being on lockdown due to behaviors. He loves sitting under this one tree. And that night, it hit me how much information we wash out of our clothes, our linens, everything. Information is currency, remember? Now multiply that story by a million or so. Little anomalies that point to big changes coming.”

“Data mining? From commercial laundry? I mean, you’re right, it’s a huge amount of information, but isn’t that a little creepy, Dad? The whole point of laundry is to forget the dirt ever existed.”

“Aggregated information, sweetheart. Nothing to link a person with the item. Census reports only tell you who’s living in a space, who’s registered there. Tax information only tells you whether they’re behaving themselves, more or less. Laundry tells you who’s _using_ the space. Say you want a snapshot of ethnic cultural activities in a specific community. So you canvass all the drycleaners and laundry services and you ask them: how many little First Communion dresses? How many Quinceañera gowns, prayer shawls, gold-embroidered saris, Caribbean-style tunics have been handled. Or how about querying the number of restaurant tablecloths with wine-stains over a year, in a lower-middle-class part of town. You’d get an angle on the number of young professionals exploring a new area, and what kind of a crowd is drawn there to spend money. Gentrification in five…four…three…you get me?”

Jamie’s impressed. He’s already combing his mental file of Harvard contacts who might be interested in playing with the concept some more. Add that dimension to other social science research and you’d have an interesting portrait of a dynamic, everyday community.

“Okay,” Eddie allows. “That’s cool. How do you see making it work in real life? I mean – I’m sorry to bring the rain cloud, but you’re gonna be living in a halfway house with limited Internet and no access to loans to pay developers. And I don’t think you’re going to be able to raise private investments anymore.”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? I’ve met the post-release support group I’ve been assigned to join.”

“Ohhh,” says Eddie, slowly.

“Convicted hackers and data fraudsters,” Jamie intuits. “And because you fall into the white-collar category too, you all get assigned the same kind of parole supports. Including brushing up the skills you used to use, to become employable again.”

“And because I know dollars, they trust me, even if I’m forty years older than some of them.”

“Okay, but let me ask you this,” Eddie begins, patiently. “Is anyone going to pay money to contract a group of ex-convicts to literally examine dirty laundry for information? I mean, legitimate money?”

“They will if it’s for research towards the social good, and if our rehabilitation stories are part of our brand,” Armin replies quietly. “Corporations are all over themselves to show they’re socially conscious and involved in their communities.”

Again, Jamie’s struck by Armin’s candor and the many avenues he’s already mapped out, but Eddie knows her father.

“But that means talking about me, too, Dad. You’ve driven it home that Mom and I were the reason you did what you did, to try to give us everything. Did you think maybe we don’t want to revisit that? And besides, Jamie and I are being assigned to Undercover next month. We have to stay as far from the news or any promotional stuff as possible.”

Her voice is very calm but clipped, remote. Jamie realizes he’s over his head, and sits back to follow Eddie’s lead. Armin’s asking for their support, and more importantly, for them to validate a new sense of purpose to carry him out of prison and into his life as a free man again. It’s the kind of emotional outreach that Eddie excels at. But her response suggests there are layers within layers here.

It occurs to him then that Armin hasn’t asked Eddie how she’s doing, or about Mira, or why Jamie’s even there today. It might be the excitement of a new idea, and Armin might assume, or know already, that he and Eddie are together now. Armin might be trying to reassure them that he won’t be a burden to them once he is released. But Eddie’s right to be cautious. This is charismatic-leader type spin that Armin is weaving, Jamie realizes.

“Sweetheart, I – ”

“I’m just saying, this is what you do. You get an idea and you run with it full-speed, good or bad, and carry everyone along till someone stops you. It was Mom for years. I’m just worried it’s gonna be me now. I cannot be your babysitter.”

Armin holds her eyes, equally seriously. “Not babysitter. As my business advisor, all decisions would go through you. I wouldn’t make a move you didn’t approve of. You’re the one who went to a fancy school to learn all that. Isn’t this why? You wanted to use your brains to help your old man help other people succeed.”

“Jesus, Dad. Do you hear yourself?”

“Hey, Janko. Four o’clock lineup. Come get your meds and they you can have another half hour.”

It’s Gordon calling, one of the orderlies Eddie recognizes by now, waving Armin over to the refectory counter. A tray of white paper pill cups is waiting, with name labels clipped to each one, and a row of clear plastic tumblers of apple juice to wash them down.

“Daddy? What’re you…are you okay?”

“It’s nothing serious, sweetheart. They found a bit of a lag in my thyroid function when I was in hospital, that’s all.”

“Oh.” Eddie says, nonplussed. Armin gets up and heads to the counter. He takes his dose, raising his plastic tumbler to Gordon in a cheerful toast.

“Aren’t you his medical contact?” Jamie asks her, under his breath.

“Well…no, actually. I don’t know if he has one. He never mentioned needing one.”

“Let’s grab Gordon on the way out.”

“No kidding.”

Armin returns to the table and seems to know not to wade back into the topic of Eddie as his business advisor. He remembers to ask how their work is going, and how Mira and Bradley doing. He doesn’t ask about Bojan and Jelana, Eddie’s Serbian cousins, and Jamie realizes that Eddie hasn’t mentioned them to her father yet. And oddly, for someone with such keen skills at observing people, Armin doesn’t seem to have registered that Jamie is there as Eddie’s boyfriend and emotional support, not her partner on the job. But he’s thrilled when they tell him, shaking Jamie’s hand again vigorously and beaming at his daughter.

“I’m so glad, Princess,” he says. “I’m just so glad. I know he’s everything you deserve.”

There are tears standing in his eyes as they leave. The guard doesn’t stop Eddie hugging her father goodbye, for once, but he watches them carefully anyway.

As they sign out at the visitor desk and retrieve their off-duty weapons, Eddie asks if she can speak to Gordon about her father’s medical treatment. There is some confusion at first, as Eddie is listed only as his emergency contact and not his next of kin for medical information purposes, but the fact that she’s his daughter and the only living family member still speaking to him does the trick.

“You understand, we have confidentiality protocols,” Gordon excuses his hesitancy.

“Oh, I get it,” Eddie waves this away. “So – he’s okay? He said they found out his thyroid was down, when he was hospitalized after the fight.”

“Thyroid? No. He’s, ah, he’s been on a medium dose of sedatives for years. They’re very common here. This is not exactly an “up” place to be. It was high blood pressure the hospital found. He’s on anti-hypertensives, now, too.”

Jamie’s heart sinks. That confirms Eddie’s prior suspicions about Armin’s state of mind, during a previous visit. He’d thought she was coming home from college to stay with him for good, at the time.

“So, nothing too out of the ordinary for a sixty-two year old in his ninth year of a sentence.”

“Not at all. Except in his case, the sedatives he’s on are also antipsychotics. In some people with bipolar disorder, they act as sedatives and anti-anxiety medications.”

“Bipolar disorder.” Eddie’s eyebrow scrunches dubiously. “We’re talking about Armin Janko, right?”

“Yeah, there’s only one of them here.”

“When was he diagnosed? There’s never been any mention of that, ever. Not in our family, not even at the trial.”

“Not long after he started his sentence. Guess he’d been self-medicating, and with the withdrawal came the onset of symptoms.”

Jamie’s already reaching out as Eddie gropes blindly for his hand. “With what?” she asks clearly bracing herself.

“Cocaine, according to him. Probably masked the lows, and because he didn’t need it during the highs, he didn’t think he had a problem.”

“Was he addicted? Did he have to go through rehab?”

“Dependent, let’s say,” Gordon eyes her kindly, “Not so much rehab as a difficult cold-turkey. We never had any problems with him since then. You know how he stood up against the drug-running ring we had in here. Look, I know you need to know all this, but we’re going to need to set up a formal meeting with the prison psychiatrist and Armin’s counsellor here to get any deeper. I definitely think you should get Armin to have you added as his family medical contact. You may need to make care decisions for him from time to time.”

“Apparently so,” says Eddie.

She looks utterly stricken. She leans heavily against Jamie’s side as he walks them through the three locked doors between the Visitor Center and the free world, and hands him the keys to Silver Belle once they breathe the outside air again.

“My father is losing his grip,” she says flatly.

Jamie, who had already considered the delusionary effects of blood pressure medication and sedatives combined, suddenly sees how the machinery of prison behaviour-control has locked Armin into a one-way spiral of increasing perceptual skew and increasing medication.

“You wanna be at your place tonight?” he asks, letting them into the Porsche.

Eddie nods.

 

* * * * *

 

“I’m giving you the full Jamie Reagan treatment tonight.”

He does a horrible job of waggling his eyebrows suggestively, and Eddie drops her forehead into her hand and laughs tiredly, shaking her head. She’s leaning back against the bathroom counter in her cherry-red polar fleece robe, a mug of masala chai beside her.

He knows she doesn’t want to talk much, after the visit with her father, but she’s too drained to exhaust herself physically as she normally would and she’s definitely not in the mood for sex. So stronger countermeasures are needed. Jamie’s been planning a couple of steps ahead since they got back to her place, and so far it’s working.

Tea and fuzzy bathrobe were just the first step. While she was undressing, he rolled his sleeves up and started drawing her a bath with the orange-ginger bubbles she likes. He’s stuck on the padded suction-cup neck pillow she likes but rarely uses, as she’s not usually in the bath for long. He’s put down the bathmat and also rolled up a towel to kneel on beside the tub. He wishes it was as old-fashioned claw-foot so he could sit right behind her shoulders – it’s really too small for them both to sit in comfortably, but he’ll make do. Lined up on the rim are her scrubby sisal cloth, shower gel, shampoo and conditioner.

He swishes a hand in the water. It’s about perfect: it’ll be up to her neck, and way too hot for him. “C’mon in.”

“Mm hmm.”

She flicks off the light switch, and the bathroom is suddenly aflicker with the glow of the half dozen tea lights he’s scattered around the place. He turns off the water, and the space feels hushed, drawn close.

He hears the swish of her robe, and turns his head to take in the view. Each time he’s graced with the sight of her body is like a hit of something powerful in his brain. She’s so small and so strong, perfect but usually sporting a bruise or two, and a few proud scars from the job. She’s such a familiar presence after so many years sitting two feet apart, but out of her uniform the tough, cute blonde officer disappears, and a far more complex Eddie emerges: powerful and vulnerable, casual but fastidious, and sensitive to the slightest touch.

She’s so unselfconsciously grounded in her body, so comfortable in her own skin after years of hard-won reconciliation with it, that sex with Eddie is more like an ongoing conversation, little touches and cuddling, wrestling matches and barging into each other’s space, making love and good hard fucking when they both need it. It’s so much more than learning what they both like. It’s learning what they both _are_ , and what they might become, with each other’s companionship.

It’s what they did for each other as cops. It shouldn’t be such a surprise that that’s how they are as lovers. But it still feels like a delightful surprise. 

“You always look at me like that,” she protests mildly, as if he should know better by now.

“Like what?”

“Like I’m some sort of, I don’t know…”

“Mermaid,” he suggests, as she steps into the foamy bath, one hand on his shoulder.

“You are never gonna let me live that down.”

“Nope. Get comfy.”

“This is nice,” she admits, sliding her legs out in front of her. “I’m sorry I’m not great company tonight.”

“You don’t have to be.”

He decides he’d better lose the shirt altogether, and pulls it over his head quickly.

“Lean forward a bit.”

She does, idly playing with the foam clusters around her knees as he settles himself beside her. He soaps up her scrubby cloth with her favourite citrus scented gel, the one she keeps for days off, and begins to work on her back and shoulders, in long, slow sweeps.

“Ohh, that’s good.”

“That’s the idea,” he says. He gets down as far as her hips before he runs out of room. He’s got plans for her shoulders and neck later, but they’ll keep. He uses the cloth to rinse most of the soap off her back, and she sighs a little, moving her head from side to side on her stiff neck.

“Okay. Lie back and close your eyes.” He hands her a dry washcloth, folded lengthwise. “Seriously,” he adds sternly, when she eyes him. “Trust me.”

“I do trust you,” she says. She sits up and leans over the rim of the tub to kiss him softly, and with a smile brewing somewhere far away in her eyes, settles herself back again, her head propped up by the pillow, the cloth over her eyes blocking even the candlelight.

First he lathers up her scrubby cloth, and reaches for her nearest hand, lifting it out of the water. He brushes kisses over her knuckles, and then starts with the cloth, washing her hand, up her forearm, over her compact muscled bicep and underneath (she twitches and squirms), and then over her shoulder. Everything is slow and hushed, the fall of water and their breathing the only sounds.

It takes a little more effort to get to the other arm, but leaning over her, and taking the opportunity to kiss her once or twice, he manages nicely. By the time he’s finished that side, she’s breathing a little more deeply, and the crinkles are smoothing out of her forehead.

“Okay?” he murmurs.

“Mm hmm,” she sighs.

He strokes his fingers from her knee down to her ankle, and lifts it just enough to start working on her toes. She giggles and her foot jerks in his grip, but he holds on, and soon enough she gets used to it.

“So how many times have you given the full Jamie Reagan treatment?” she drawls lazily, her arms folded limply across her middle.

“Well, only once, to be honest, and it sorta bombed,” he admits.

She huffs a quiet laugh. “Really? I gotta hear about this.”

“You sure? It was me and Syd, years ago.”

“No, I wanna know.”

“Well. I tried to plan something like this for Syd once. She’d had a bad day at the end of a bad week. I thought it was the least I could do. And it’s not like she wasn’t happy about it, but she…kept on trying to direct things. Like she didn’t really think I’d know what she’d like. So yeah, she liked it, but I never really had a chance to _show_ her all the things I’d picked up on that I knew she liked, ‘cause she kept telling me what to do. It felt more like, I don’t know, she didn’t want me to do anything she might not like, in case she didn’t want to tell me,”

“Hmm.” Is Eddie’s response to this, and she’s silent for a minute. Then: “That’s funny, actually, because all those little things are what made us so great together in the first place.”

He takes a moment to set down the cloth, and take a long, steadying breath before moving his soapy bare hand up past her knee. She’s exquisitely sensitive here, and fending off his response to _her_ response may be difficult. He tries to keep his strokes firm and even over her satiny skin. This is the point she’ll probably let him know if she wants him to keep this warm and soothing, or take it further. He’ll be perfectly happy either way, as long he reads her right.

“I think so too,” he murmurs.

“And it always drove everyone else mad,” Eddie grins, under the cloth. “Because one of us would say or do something that sounded totally inconsequential to anyone else, but we’d just know it was supposed to be a compliment. Or a reminder.”

“Or a poke,” he adds.

“Or a poke.”

“Or just something to make you smile.”

“And you always knew I was smiling, even if I yelled at you for being so silly.”

“Oh, especially then.”

“And you always know when I’m trying to apologize for doing something idiotic, even if you’re better at saying it.”

“Of course I know. And you’re never idiotic. We’re all just learning.”

“You see?” she says, “There you go again, all supportive and… _ohhh_.”

He’s found one of her favourite spots around the back of her knee, and her breath is coming a little short. He slides a soapy hand up the side of her thigh, up to the curve of her hip and the swell of her ass, and she sighs and sinks down another inch in the water, hitching up to give him better access.

“You move so sweet,” he tells her, low. She hums in response and her mouth falls open slightly on an exhale as he runs his fingers up around the silky crease between her thigh and the neat dark curls framing her pussy.

“Shh, easy,” he murmurs. “We got a long way to go yet.”

He can see a flush travelling over her breasts, up her chest, with the heat of the water and the speeding up of her pulse under his touch. He can feel himself growing pleasantly half-hard in his jeans, and tries to convince himself not to get any harder. Yet.

“Gimme your other knee.”

She does. In fact, she draws her leg up and out of the bubbles at an angle he knows and loves very well, with a sly smile on her face. He picks up the cloth again and concentrates on his task as best he can. But she’s completely irresistible, warm and pliant and open to him like this.

He skims his fingers along her impossibly soft nether lips and dips just inside, just once – okay, once more – and a sinuous wave passes through her body as she gasps.

“Wait your turn,” he admonishes lightly, whether to her or to his cock, he’s not sure.

He lowers her leg back into the hot water, and contents himself with stroking the skin of her belly as she settles down again.

“ _Fuuuck_ , Reagan,” she breathes.

He grins. And steels himself for the next part, because he’s an unrepentant breast man, especially where Eddie is concerned. She’s never been shy of flaunting them a little, which makes sense considering that they’re magnificent, and strapped down under bulky layers a great deal of the time. In the past, he did a fine job of catching glimpses only out of the corners of his vision, like an astronomer looking for the dimmer stars in the night sky. Over the years he built up most of an image, filing in the rest with an active imagination. But no fantasy approached the real deal, creamy-golden and rose-tipped, the weight and proud rise of them, and the intense sensitivity of them. He can make her relax, purr, or scream and damn near come to orgasm just playing with them. And the feel of one of them cupped in his hand, as she nestles back against him as they’re settling for sleep, makes him feel like all is well with the world.

In the candlelight, dripping wet and flushed and peaking slightly, they’re a wonder to behold.

He soaps up his fingers again, and smooths his hand up over her ribs and across, under her breasts, unrushed. She sighs deeply and the tip of her tongue flicks out to lick her lips. He finds himself entranced all over again by her, as she relaxes into arousal, so lovely and so trusting.

“You’re staring,” she tells him.

“You’re absolutely stunning,” he replies. “And I am a lucky man.”

He’s not talking about her looks, she knows, but that she lets him see her, just as she is, however she is. She pulls the cloth off of her eyes and blinks, and gazes up at him.

“Kiss me,” she whispers, with the telltale edge of pleading that gets him in the gut, every time. He’s there in a moment, reveling in the taste of her, the hungry anticipation drawing tight, the feel of her wet seeking fingers, her hand around the back of his neck, and warm droplets running over his chest and shoulders and down his spine.

He strokes the curve over the tops of her breasts, where it always relaxes her instantly, and sure enough, she subsides back under the hot water a little. He slides his soapy hands down and over each, briefly, in time with her breathing. Finally he palms a breast, warm and slightly buoyant under his hand, and strokes slowly over her hard, slick little nipple. A deep shudder runs through her and she gasps aloud, her head thrashing against the pillow. He keeps going, stroking and circling and finally pinching with the slightest pressure, and she curses under her breath and her spine arches up into his touch.

And then the other, as his mouth finds hers again, and her tongue flicks between his teeth. God, there is nothing like Eddie in the throes of serious arousal. She can be as imperious and demanding as an empress or as earthy and giggly as a milkmaid in the hay. He wonders what she must think of him; he can be as tender a lover or as mischievous a bastard as he knows how.

With great difficulty, he pulls back in a moment or two, and smiles, touching a kiss to her forehead.

“Not done yet.”

“Aww…”

“Phase two.”

“We have phases?”

“Tonight we do. Hang on.”

He stand up and undoes his jeans, slipping them and his boxers off and folding them in a bundle onto the counter.

“I like this phase,” she leers at him, rather more than half-erect by now. “But I’m out of dollar bills just now.”

“I take plastic, too.”

He lets the water run warm for a minute, and then reaches in to pull the plug. Eddie slides her feet back under her and stands up to give him room, and he steps into the tub and pulls the shower curtain closed.

“Hi.”

“Well, hello there,” she says, sliding her hands around his neck, and pressing up against him, warm and soft and wet. Her eyes are warm and gleaming at him. He’s got his Eddie back. He kisses her quickly and reaches back to turn on the shower.

“Turn ‘round.”

She does, and he angles the spray over her hair. Since they got together, she’s discovered she really, really loves him washing her hair, and he’s happy to oblige. He does so now, massaging the lather over her scalp, especially behind her ears and down along the back of her jaw where the tension hides. Then her conditioner, which makes for a useful slippery medium for a neck and shoulder rub. She leans back into his hands and her purrs become moans as he deepens his strokes as hard as she can take, up behind her shoulder blades and along the tendons in her neck. He’ll give her a proper workover later. This is just to get her loosened up and breathing deeply again after the day she’s had.

Rinsed clean, she starts to turn around, but he holds her back against him, his arm around her shoulders.

“You are,” he murmurs in her ear, “the most wonderful, sexiest ever, best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

She giggles, and he closes his eyes, feeling it all through her, and everywhere she touches him. Still holding her close, he runs his other hand down over her breast, feeling her up blatantly and enjoying it. She hums and leans back, her head rolling against his shoulder as he plays with her nipples, petting and stroking and pinching till she’s breathing fast and heavy. He reaches down for her own hand, and places it on her breast, right where his was. A moan escapes her and she rolls her own nipple in her fingers as he slides down, down, and into the slick cleft of her pussy. He knows exactly what she wants, and he’s not going to give it to her, not just yet. He slides his fingers around her clit, not touching the tip, and down further, but not inside her. Just enough to make her arch back and curse at him.

This slow buildup and retreat is so fucking incredible to share with her, the way they take turns driving each other to the brink of control before letting go.

When she tries to turn around this time, he lets her, and her mouth finds a particularly sweet spot on his pectoral to bite down on while she slips her hand around his aching cock. He hisses with the pleasure of it corkscrewing up his spine into his brain, and leans against the wall for support. She works his thickened shaft firmly but so, so slowly, reaching up to kiss him greedily while playing with his balls in between strokes, her tongue tracing maddening incantations over the roof of his mouth. It’s always like this, when she touches him. He wants it to last forever, but he needs to come so badly, so soon that it’s like being a teenager again.

She kisses him even deeper and does something completely magical with the path from his balls nearly to his asshole, but not quite, that still makes everything clench up and nearly has him exploding in her hand with the hot shock of it. And then she slides her hand off him, and lets him go, taking a half step back with a satisfied grin, because she knows.

“Jesus, Eddie…”

“We staying in here, or going to bed?” she murmurs.

“Bed. I still have plans for you.”

“Ohhh, shit,” she sighs. “What’d I do to deserve you?”

“Planted yourself in front of me and told me to be gentle with you,” he tells her, with complete honesty.

“I did, didn’t I?” she says. “I’ll be quick. You do your hair, I can’t reach.” He sends her a heated look, and turns around. While he’s washing his hair, she works him over efficiently with his own scrubby cloth – how did he never learn of those things, in the Time Before Eddie? – and taps him smartly on the ass. “You’re done,” she says.

For two people whose legs are decidedly shaky, it’s remarkable how fast they towel off and make for the bedroom. They even think to grab a couple of the tea lights each. Such teamwork.

And there, stretched out clean and comfortable on Eddie’s luxuriously-sized bed, he takes his own sweet time driving her out of her mind.

He starts all over again, slowly, combing out her hair while she finishes her chai. He lets her drift back against the pillows when she’s ready, sprinkling kisses over her forehead and eyelids and cheeks before taking her mouth, slowly and with deepening hunger. She’s so turned on still that every touch makes her moan and writhe a little. He slides a hand over the side of her ribs just to feel her breathing pick up as he kisses the hollow of her throat. Her hands clutch on his shoulders as he brushes kisses over her breasts, seeking out her nipples with a soft mouth. She likes light touches best, he knows, and he gives her just that, little kisses and licks and suckles till her hips are bucking and her fingers are digging in to his scalp unconsciously.

“Jamie… _Jamie_ …”

One hand strokes a path down her hip, down to her thighs, and slides between, urging her legs apart for him. He trails his fingers through the soft, crisp curls there, barely touching, and a harsh groan escapes her. Still playing there, he lets her feel the edge of teeth on her nipple, and she curses, her spine arching off the bed.

“God, Eddie,” he grates. She’s so incredibly hot to watch.

He lets go of her nipple and lifts his head to kiss her, rough and needy, and she sort of sobs into his mouth, but she doesn’t beg, not yet. He smiles and kisses her one last time and slides down her body.

“Oh, fuck…” she pushes a knuckle into her mouth in anticipation.

His mouth draws garlands of kisses from one hip across her belly to the other, as his hand slides under her thigh. Sending her a smirk as he looks up at her, he pushes her thigh up over his shoulder and leans in to the honey-and-vanilla headrush of the scent of her pussy. He lingers, inhaling her, his own cock hard and weeping and impatient, but he’s not done with her. He opens her gently with his thumbs and takes the briefest taste of her tangy slick, and feels a groan tear from his chest as she muffles a cry.

Little licks, around her opening and then finally, finally up to her clit, so swollen and sensitive he can feel her pulse under his lips. She shudders and shifts restlessly, and he licks each side of her clit, and then barely skims a circle around it, once, twice, again – and then pulls back just as she’s getting into the rhythm.

“ _Fuck_!” she hisses again, her fists bunching up the quilt underneath her.

He holds her open with the fingers of one hand, and traces two fingers up and down her lips, getting them good and wet, and then slowly eases then inside. He has to grit his teeth and press his forehead into her hip; she’s so hot and slick and snug, and he knows exactly what it feels like to sink his cock there. But not yet.

Once he’s in good and deep, he starts stroking her slowly inside, flickering his fingers back and forth. She cries out in a steady stream as he finds that sweet electric spot, even screaming for him a little, and speeds up the barest fraction. Oh, God, the feel of her clenching around him. It’s like nothing else in the world.

He readjusts her knee over his shoulder, and leans in again. She’s bucking and cursing now. When she’s this sensitive, she can’t get enough of his fingers, but she won’t come from that alone, no matter how long. So he pulls her to the edge, and swipes his tongue over her clit, just once. A few moments later, he does it again. And then again. And then finally –

“Pleasepleasepleaseohfuck _please_ …”

He mouths her clit, rolls his tongue around it without touching the tip, and when she’s thrashing and cursing him out so he can barely hold her still, her slides a third finger inside, just a mite deeper, and suckles firmly.

She stops breathing and freezes. And then her spine snaps back and wave after wave after wave of pleasure courses through her as she convulses, hard, taken right out of herself. He slows his fingers and gentles his mouth to almost nothing, spinning her out for long minutes. She’s still shaking with aftershocks when he slides his fingers from her, and licks up her juices with a rapturous expression. He lets her leg down onto the bed and rests his head on the other, sliding a warm hand over her belly.

The aftershocks aren’t letting up at all, he thinks. It takes him a couple of moments, but he realizes what’s going on and looks up. Eddie’s crying, quietly, just tears leaking out the corners of her eyes really, but she’s smiling wistfully at him, her fingers coming to thread through his hair.

“Hey,” he whispers, moving up beside her. “Hey, you okay?” She’s never been one for post-orgasmic tears.

She nods. “Just – release. Today. This whole week… _month_. So much going on, all the family stuff…” she waves her hand vaguely in the air. “And you being Mister Wonderful through it all, I don’t know. I don’t know what I can even offer you in return. Your family’s just taken me in, and mine has more mess than I ever knew.”

“What you offered me was _you_ ,” he says. “All of you. It’s more than anyone could ask, it can only be offered. And just ‘cause my family’s in one city and has learned to deal with each other doesn’t mean we’ve got everything figured out. Reagan mess is not pretty.”

“And now this. Sorry. Way to kill a mood,” she laughs weakly. “I’m okay, really.”

“I know. This is…sort of what I wanted for you. I just wanted you to feel safe to let it all out. Taken care of for a bit.”

“You do,” she says, laying a hand against his cheek. “You always do.” She looks down at their bodies, sprawled together, and back up at him. “Hey. Lemme take care of you.”

“You don’t have to. It’s not like a transaction or anything.”

“I know. But I – ” she says, rolling over and sliding herself over him, “have been waiting all day to have you inside me, Reagan, and you need this, too.”

“I’m not arguing,” he manages.

“Sit up, sit up a bit.”

He does, propping himself up against the headboard, and bringing her with him on his lap.

“This is new,” he comments. “This is nice.”

“Nice?” she says, with an eyebrow.

“Very nice?”

She shifts her hips forward and he cradles them in his hands as she leans in to kiss him. He tastes her tiredness, but also a fierce, stubborn love and a peacefulness he hasn’t felt in her for some time. She takes him in slowly, so wet still that he slides home easily, and he closes his eyes and groans quietly into her shoulder at the feel of her tightening around him. She rises and falls on him, their breathing falling into rhythm, and he’s taken back to the hushed intimacy of touching her slowly and softly in her bath.

It reminds him of their dance, actually, and how they just knew how the other would move, and the thousand things they were trying to tell each other under their words.

And Eddie’s not so tired that she hasn’t realized that this is a really excellent position for her, and she’s speeding up a little and biting her lip with the unexpected sharp pleasure of it. And if Eddie losing herself to pleasure, with her glorious breasts right at eye level isn’t one of the hottest things he’s seen…

He ducks down to find a nipple with his mouth, and they’re so sensitive still that she shudders with it and clenches on him, and he pulls his knees up and thrusts deeper. He catches sight of a glimpse of them in the mirror over her dresser, the candlelight flickering off the twisting curve of her spine, his cock disappearing wetly into her, over and over. It’s not long before slow and sweet turns into a tightly-wound cascade of giving and taking, driving each other faster and harder, her clit dragging against his length on every stroke and his nails in her ass urging her on till she comes again with a cry, shuddering in his arms, and he breaks and spills inside her, groaning through his teeth at the volcanic intensity of it.

At length, she rolls off him and lands on her side, apparently unable to move a muscle. He slides down too, pausing just enough to tug the tangled quilt out from under them and pulling it up. He curls into her and wraps an arm around her, cradling a breast in his hand.

Exhausted, they sleep.

* * *

 


	13. Chapter 13

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Undercover / under covers

“What do you think your biggest challenge will be on the new job?” Henry asks her, while at the other end of the table, a small war breaks out between Erin and Danny, over a childhood fight they remember differently as adults.

It’s Eddie’s second Sunday dinner at Chateau Reagan. She’s missed a couple of weeks. They’re a lot to handle all at once, and she’s had her fill of family complications to deal with at Fort Dix, this past month.

Pondering Henry’s question, she sits back and takes a sip of her red wine. It’s an unusual pairing with salmon, but Erin was right: the blood orange and cilantro and sumac she baked the salmon with demand something substantial. Besides, a rich red goes better with nights like this: rain and hail lashing at the windows, and candles placed ready just in case the power goes out. She almost hopes it does. Playing tipsy poker by candlelight with this mob would be hilarious.

But not too tipsy. Not tonight. In the morning, she and Jamie will step into a new phase of their careers, assigned to the Undercover Division for a year or more, all going well. Frank wants to talk to them further about it after dinner, and she’s keen to hear his ideas. It’s an exciting new development, if a little daunting, and any hints and stories she can pick up can only help.

She knows she and Jamie are excellent at reading each other’s thoughts and intentions when they’re improvising together, but they won’t be working directly together much, now that they’re a couple. Their new bosses are taking a gamble on their being able to transfer those skills to other field operatives. She also knows they’re going to be put through their paces and that the unit is going to wring as much out of them as it can.

It’s a mental and emotional meat-grinder, especially if they’re put on the drug, hooker or kiddie patrols. Burnout is as high . Three to five years are more than enough for most. They’ve considered moving in together just to get a few extra hours of each other’s support and company, and to save up for a few much-needed getaways and road trips now and then. But one major move at a time: first, settling into their new jobs.

“Oh, getting up half an hour earlier,” she answers Henry lightly, not wanting to delve into the harsh realities of the New York underworld and put people off Erin’s dinner. “Being out of uniform means I’m going to have to start thinking about what to wear to work in the mornings again. At least for days at the office. They’ll tell me what to wear on cases.”

She and Jamie are both going to have to acquire a rainbow of new accessories and things to be able to flash the Color of the Day to other plainclothes and undercover officers. She hadn’t considered that it would coincide with upgrading her weekend wardrobe to Reagan Sunday Dinner specs.

At her comment, all three of the kids mutter quietly and nod.

“Say what you like about uniforms,” Nicky says, “and I could say plenty, but they do make mornings a lot easier.”

“What about uniforms?” Frank asks, “They show group cohesion, and self-discipline. They say you’re part of something to be proud of.”

“Not all uniforms,” Nicky says. “Some of them are just about corporate branding and enforced unity.”

Frank accedes to this more or less graciously. “You’re right. I should have defined my terms more clearly. _School_ uniforms. Police and military uniforms. ”

Jack air-fives his cousin across the table. “You got a point off Grandpa!”

“Points? We don’t argue for points,” Frank protests, with a sweep of his hand.

“What? We totally argue for points,” says Jamie. Danny and Erin back him enthusiastically, reunited again.

Eddie, still getting used to the riotous flow of Sunday dinner conversation with the Reagans, turns back to Henry, who is smiling beatifically at her, with many wheels clicking away behind his all-seeing eyes. Their mutual crush continues, but she knows he’s taking her measure in a way that has nothing to do with her being his youngest grandson’s partner on the job. The future he has envisioned and dreamed of for his family now includes her.

“Seriously, though, I don’t know yet what the biggest challenge will be. I think probably keeping up one of those long, slow operations that goes on for months or even years, but you have to be the right person at just the right point in your life and career for one of those operations. You never know. One of us might be the perfect fit to infiltrate something. I mean – what if they need someone to talk hard money and join a high-level gang of white-collar crimelords? It’s not out of the question.”

Jamie groans. “Just please, no more telemarketing. Anything but that.”

“…but for the first month or so we’re going to be sent on one training course after another, so I’m expecting a ton of homework.”

“What kind of homework?” Sean asks, curiously, “Don’t you usually just get told about the case and then make up a character and stuff like that?”

“That’s what we’ve done so far,” Jamie agrees, “and we’ve gotten away with more than we should. I mean, I got insanely lucky back in my first year. It went sideways, and you remember I got beat up super bad that one time. But my handler kept me on a really short leash, so at least he knew where I was supposed to be every minute, if I went off-grid. There’s a whole lot more theory and survival and escape skills we gotta pick up, if we want to do this kind of work over the long term.”

“Escape skills!” Nicky’s eyes brighten. “That sounds fun.”

“ _How_ bad is super bad, exactly?” Eddie murmurs to Jamie, who squeezes her leg under the table reassuringly.

She assumes he’s talking about the Sanfino case, about which she’s only heard a few anecdotes. He’ll explain it to her later, as much as he can. They’re also going to have to get used to self-censoring around each other about their work. It’s a new development in their working relationship that neither likes the thought of.

“It actually is fun,” Frank says, “That’s always the module that gets the most positive feedback. It’s not just physical escape skills, though. It’s about talking your way out of a meeting gone bad, or signalling to your handlers without arousing any suspicion.”

“Without getting killed,” Sean says flatly. “That’s what you mean, isn’t it?”

Silence falls over the table. Eddie looks around quickly and sees that she’s not alone in thinking that was out of line. Erin and Nicky wear the same expression of guarded concern. Jack rolls his eyes and sighs, and Jamie watches Sean closely. Frank and Henry share a glance, and then both turn to Danny, who is eyeing his younger son with some asperity.

They’re not getting along any better than they have since Linda’s passing, Eddie thinks, but they’re not fighting outright. Just…struggling. A lot.

“Yes,” Danny answers him. “That is what we’re talking about. And you know we don’t need to talk about it at the table.”

“I’m just saying, we all know it, and it’s not like there’s any kids here anymore,” Sean persists. “You guys don’t need to pretend we don’t know how dangerous it can be out there. We can deal with it.”

“We know you can,” Henry says. “It’s not for your sake we don’t talk at dinner about how the worst that can happen. If it’s troubling you, and it’s only natural that it should, by all means let’s talk about it later on.”

“No, I mean…it’s not like that,” Sean mumbles, feeling everyone’s eyes on him. “Sorry, Pop. Sorry, Dad. Forget I said anything.”

“Well, then,” Frank says, after a pause, “Let’s move on.

After dinner, Frank sends her and Jamie another long, thoughtful glance and nods towards the library. Eddie is suddenly hit with a wave of trepidation. It’s not about the physical danger they’re putting themselves into. She’s used to Frank stepping into his Commissioner role between one breath and the next, too, but that’s not what she’s picking up on, either. Frank’s whole demeanour has gone clouded in a way that makes her spine creep. Jamie’s hand in the small of her back is reassuring. Even though Frank’s stepped into her work life a couple of times, she’s never experienced an actual talking-to from him, either in his official capacity or as her boyfriend’s dad.

The kids, having made their own silent arrangement, stand and start picking up dishes to take to the kitchen. Apparently Jack and Nicky also have things they want to say to Sean, or try to get out of him, out of range of the grownups.

Erin, Danny and Henry keep their seats through this, watching the family split off into clusters, and look at each other for clues.

“What’s with everyone?” Danny demands. Erin shakes her head, bemused.

“Don’t worry,” Henry calls after them all, “We’ll throw on a movie and turn it up loud enough we won’t hear a thing.”

“You haven’t bugged every room on this floor yet?” Erin asks her grandfather, only partly joking.

He chuckles, and Eddie hears him reply, “No, no. We did consider it, of course.”

The library is as warm and cozy as it’s possible to get, with a small fire crackling in the hearth in case of a blackout, the heavy cream drapes drawn against the storm, and the old oak furniture glowing with firelight and polish. Frank offers them a nightcap, which they both refuse, having a rainy drive and an early night ahead.

“Suit yourselves,” he says, uncapping the glass decanter. “It’s a twenty-year-old charred-oak Islay.”

“Save us some for our first big catch,” Jamie suggests. “What’s on your mind?”

Eddie sits down on the broad three-seater, with Jamie beside her, a polite few inches apart. Frank, with his back to them, pours himself two fingers over ice, and then adds another splash. Eddie has the impression he’s stalling for time rather than fortifying himself. Praying? It’s not impossible.

Frank settles himself in his favourite wing-chair across and raises his tumbler to them.

“Have you been given any briefing materials from Undercover?” he asks them conversationally.

They shake their heads.

“Nothing yet, except to report to the One PP at oh-eight-hundred sharp, business casual, no tie,” Jamie replies. “Physical combat training later on in the course.”

“That’s right. You’ll be assigned a laptop to use during classroom training, to be kept at the office, and a secure smartphone to carry with you.”

“They still using Blackberry for encrypted phones?” Eddie asks.

“For the present, but that’s going to change soon. We’re still working out what we can afford to transition everyone to.”

There’s an awkward gap, which Frank tries to fill with a sip.

“Dad?”

“Eddie – ” Frank begins. He tries again. “Eddie, do you know how Joe died?”

Beside her, Jamie stiffens right up. Eddie looks from Jamie to his father.

“I only heard he was killed in a drug bust gone wrong,” she says carefully. “That’s what his plaque says on the Wall of Honor. But I did wonder…” she flicks a glance at Jamie. “I never asked you directly. There didn’t seem to be any reason to. It’s tragedy enough. But I did think once or twice there was more to it that you didn’t want to talk about.”

Jamie’s eyes are locked on his father’s, but his words are for her. “I was planning on explaining it all to you some day. I just didn’t know when I’d be able to. It’s classified at the highest level.”

She gets the implication, and she’s not at all hurt, but she’s concerned now, and deeply curious.

Frank leans forward and speaks quietly. “Officer Janko, this information is absolutely classified at the highest level. Those who you can speak freely to about it are myself, Danny, Erin, Jamie and my father. Not even my Executive Assistant or Deputy Commissioners know. Not even IAB knows. My son Joe was killed by a dirty cop. The reason was that the FBI was working with Joe to infiltrate a police fraternity gone rogue, called the Blue Templar. Joe did this successfully – very successfully – and he was days away from delivering critical evidence to the FBI when a member of the Blue Templar shot him, execution-style.”

She feels a galvanic physical shock pass through her, and reaches for Jamie’s hand, official briefing or not. Jamie looks at her now, and the pain she’s seen surface in his eyes sometimes suddenly makes a lot more sense. She sees it there now, but there’s also relief. Now that she’s been read in, a great pressure is off him. She presses his hand and lets go.

“I’ve heard stories about the Blue Templar,” she says. “I heard that they used to be an honor organization, a way for the service to clean itself up from the inside, after the Knapp Commission in the 70s. They say it worked for a while, but then the original leaders aged out and it turned into a social organization, and started to go bad from the inside. But I only ever heard a handful of old timers talk about it, and they all said the actual Templar died out by the turn of the millennium. Nobody else seemed to have heard much.”

“Well, that’s mostly right,” says Frank, “but the part about it dying out isn’t quite accurate. The Templar of just ten years ago was into drug trafficking, weapons selling and prostitution.”

“The big three,” Eddie murmurs. Frank ducks his head in acknowledgement and takes another sip.

“And so they rewrote Serpico and had Joe removed just before he could testify.  He’d already given the FBI good information, enough for search warrants and a few arrests. There were a few sudden retirements for personal reasons, or transfers to other states. But the FBI wasn’t able to smoke out the entire pit of snakes. After Joe died, they just went deeper underground and got a lot more careful. But being smaller and stripped down, they could also move faster.”

Eddie does some quick math. “You were just leaving Harvard,” she says to Jamie. He nods.

“Not the whole reason I joined up, honestly, but a big part of it. Took me a couple of years to make up my mind,” he reminds her.

“Within Jamie’s first year, he was approached by the FBI, or so he thought, to continue Joe’s work,” Frank says. “He was still in field training, but they correctly assumed that based on his family background and his reputation from Harvard, he wouldn’t be able to resist helping get justice for his brother. They also correctly estimated his capacity to take the law into his own hands and go, let’s say, independent, if not rogue.”

“You didn’t _tell_ anyone?”

“I couldn’t tell anyone. They’d already killed another ex-cop who got too close,” Jamie tells her, bleakly, “because she knew about the Templar’s activities, and she knew who killed Joe. It was actually a voice recording of Joe’s that got me roped in, at the very beginning. His old digital voice recorder from work was in a box of his stuff that came to me after he died. I started sniffing around. I guess the FBI had eyes on me even from the Academy. They came to me right when I was at a low point and just desperate for something concrete to do about Joe’s death and what he was working on. Or I thought they did. Turns out the agent who came to me wasn’t exactly aboveboard either. So yeah, after that I went _independent_ , as dad says.”

“The officer Jamie mentioned was killed by man who killed Joe. Then he tried to kill Jamie,” Frank goes on, relentlessly, “Two of my sons. Two of the officers under my watch. And Jamie finally came to us with what he knew. And then all bets were off.”

“They _what_?”

She’s not sure if she’s infuriated, shocked or aghast. What else doesn’t she know about her best friend and lover – and especially the lengths he’d go to? How in the world can Undercover think it’s a good idea to bring him on board with that history, even with the help he’s given then from time to time?

“Joe’s car,” he tells her. “Brake lines cut. Good thing I’m a damn good driver.”

He tries to offer her a slightly apologetic twitch of the corner of his mouth, but she’s still reeling.

“What happened?” she demands sharply.

“The rogue officer, Sonny Malevsky, killed himself with his own service weapon after we raided a meeting and cocaine handover that he was presiding over. We arrested everyone else who was there. As far as we knew for certain, we got them all.”

There’s more to that conclusion. Eddie is quite sure she knows what she’s not being told, but at this point, she’s not inclined to cast judgement on anyone. “As far as you knew _for certain_?”

“We’ve kept one eye open for similar activity since then. Two years ago, we heard a very quiet rumor. A few months ago, we received reliable intel, though not solid proof, of smaller-scale operations. Drug and weapon thefts from Evidence, here and there. Prostitutes given reduced charges or let walk if they agree to service officers on demand for free, or their associates.”

“And letting it continue is basically condoning it,” Eddie says, trying to keep all the threads untangled. “At least, if anyone else knows _you_ know. Does anyone know? I mean, that your office is aware of it?”

“It’s a sad fact that these activities happen in almost all large police departments. I’m sure the rank and file know we’re always looking out for it. It’s the next couple of tiers higher that tends to get sucked in – Sergeants and Captains who will never climb higher, who begin to think there’s no harm in feathering their nests a little before taking early retirement. What I don’t know is _who_ among the remaining Templars know what my office knows, and _what_ they think we know. Because yes, you’re right, if it’s generally known that I’m aware of these goings-on, then it will also be assumed that I’m gathering information for a major operation, or that I’m turning a blind eye.”

“But anyone involved in that sort of lowlife crime has to know that you, of all people, wouldn’t turn a blind eye for a second if you had any real proof,” Eddie says, forgetting entirely that she’s speaking to the Police Commissioner, “They’d expect you to burn out the entire hornet’s nest. I mean, they’d probably be the first ones demanding that you do it, knowing they’d covered their asses.”

“Yes,” says Frank. “That is what they’d do.”

“Jesus, Dad,” Jamie says, “Just how much information are you sitting on, pretending you haven’t heard a thing? What’s that even doing to you? Not to mention Baker. And Gormley? No wonder he’s going bald.”

Eddie’s glad Jamie asked that, because she couldn’t have done. He’s apparently forgotten that Frank is in his Commissioner phase, too. But Frank seems to be relieved, too, that so much of the story is finally coming out, and even glad to be confronted about it by someone he can speak with candidly.

It suddenly hit her that while all of Frank’s children are his pride and joy, Jamie is the one he secretly hopes to give the keys of the castle. Danny would never make a Commissioner, nor would he want it. Tragically, they’ll never know about Joe. Erin comes from a different branch of law, though she’ll always be involved with the Commissioner’s office. But Jamie…Jamie just might. Not in New York; the citizens would never stand for a third generation of Police Commissioners from one family. But there are many other places to be useful…

“What’s needed is a single strike that takes out the operation at the highest and lowest levels, and in a public enough fashion that the NYPD is seen to be capable and determined to police its own. But we also need to stay far enough ahead of it that other civic offices don’t tar us all – from my office down to candidates like Nicky – and demand blood for the sake of bloodletting.”

“Oh, there’s going to be bloodletting,” Eddie says, getting carried away, “Something like that has to be made public, just for accountability’s sake. And _any_ decent cop should come forward once they know they’ll be protected. But to try to reassure the public with it? Anti-police sentiment is already at an all-time high, and it’s – ”

“– Garrett and Dad’s problem,” Jamie slides in, trying to calm her down a little. “And you know, the media inflates anti-police rhetoric like crazy. Surveys show the majority of Americans want good policing and visible presence – but there’s a trust issue, absolutely.”

Eddie, taking a couple of deep breaths before she goes off again, says: “Commissioner. Frank, sorry. Is it important that I know this now because we’re going undercover, or because Jamie and I are together now?”

“Both, actually,” Frank replies mildly. “I didn’t want Jamie to have to keep anything at all from you. And it wasn’t entirely Sergeant Renzulli’s idea to have you seconded to the Undercover unit.”

“Oh…”

This evening is turning out to be full of surprises.

Beside her, Jamie leans forward. Eddie can feel excitement radiating from him.

“Dad? What do you want us to do?”

“I want you,” he tells them both, enunciating his words carefully, “to go undercover within Undercover.”

She and Jamie mentally share a look without even moving.

“Like IAB, but off the books?” Jamie asks.

“Exactly.”

“I wondered,” Jamie says. “I mean, I can blend in, but there are still people out there who’ll link me with Noble Sanfino. And if any of the existing Templar has ever told what happened when Malevsky killed himself – come to think of it, how come they’ve never come after me again, if they’re still out there? There were over twelve people there. It would only take one of them to talk to the wrong person who’s still active.”

“Because Sonny Malevsky killed himself, with his own hand, unaided, and that’s all been confirmed by forensics. He knew he was about to be tried for the murder of an NYPD officer, in addition to the other corruption charges, and unable to face the consequences, he took the coward’s way out.”

“Oh,” Jamie replies, speechless for once.

Eddie interprets this quickly: a forensic psychiatric dossier has already been prepared for each man arrested that night, and should they talk, they too will be found to have killed themselves, with their own hand, unaided, in their cell. They, too, will be called cowards, unable to face the price of their crimes. And they have had this explained to them clearly, no doubt.

“Welcome to the NFL,” Frank says grimly. “I hate politics.”

“That’s not politics.”

“For me it is, because my only involvement in that business was to be sick to my stomach when I was informed about the…contingency arrangements made regarding the other Templar arrestees. I did not call for it, sit in on any meetings, hear anything…I was never supposed to know myself. But I do,” Frank sips his drink, “And I can’t un-know it, or admit that I know it.”

“Ah…” Jamie is still trying to tread water. “And where do we fit into this, now that we can’t un-know it or admit we know it, either?”

He sounds more than a little sharp at the end. Frank acknowledges the burden he’s dumped on their souls with a look that falls a little short of apology. They are his agents now, his soldiers in the field, and this is their briefing.

“I have had reliable intel that two, possibly three, of the Templar are working in the Undercover Unit. I don’t know whether they’re field operatives or handlers or technicians. Now – ” Frank leans forwards. “As far as you’re concerned, you are a pair of early-career officers who have done the right thing, coming clean about your relationship, and have been given a chance to show your skills in other capacities. You will go through your training regimen as planned. You will not question your supervisors except to increase your understanding of the job itself. You will show enthusiasm and gratitude. You will _not_ question why you were transferred to Undercover, especially you, Jamie, knowing that they’ve used you before and your face is out there still as Jimmy Riordan. Your only role is to be exactly who you’re supposed to be. I don’t want to place ideas in your head about what to look out for or from whom. For now, I only want you to use your intuition and insight and keep thorough notes on what goes on every day – what you’re taught, by whom, who else you talk to, who walks down the same hallways at the same time as you, where the operatives go for lunch, if they talk about the weather at the water cooler or something else.”

“Journals?” Eddie asks. “What’s least vulnerable?”

“Journals,” Frank agrees. “Handwritten, I’m afraid. With preprinted, numbered pages. Virtually impossible to alter or forge without showing up in document analysis or interrupted fingerprint patterns on the pages. I can keep you supplied with small field notebooks that you can either carry on you or store in them in your gun safes at home during the day, just as you prefer. I’d suggest leaving them at home, actually. You can bring them here every Sunday and put them in my own safe. I won’t even read them until it’s time. At this point, I think we can assume that you’ll be watched with interest but nobody will be trying to make a direct move to find out if you’re doing anything except studying hard. Everyone knows you two have shown a consistent interest and aptitude for the work. And you,” he fixes his gaze on Jamie, “Have earned yourself a reputation as a bit of a white-knighter. I want you to keep a lid on it, but visibly. I want you to use that. Undercover is almost certainly going to throw integrity tests at you now and then. Sometimes it won’t be about you, but someone else you see failing those tests. Help them. Try to make contact with them without going over their heads. Like you’re just a rank and file trying to stay under the radar, not my son with special access.”

“But we do have special access,” Jamie replies. Eddie hears a warm affection and understanding in his voice. Frank must have been planning this since he first got wind that the Templar had remobilized.

“You do,” Frank assures him. “Both of you do. Eddie, this house is essentially a safehouse. Next Sunday I’ll take some time and orient you to entries and exits, and you should think about keeping some day to day clothes and supplies here. I’m giving you my personal cell number. Jamie will explain a few of the family codes we use. I believe you’re familiar with the one the grandkids used at the festival, to indicate they needed help but they were unharmed and not under duress? There are about half a dozen of those.”

Eddie pulls her spine up straight, and sensing the change in tone, reaches over for Jamie’s hand as casually as she can. He squeezes back almost imperceptibly. Or maybe he’s shaking a little with adrenaline. She certainly is.

“Good thing I like international spy thrillers,” she comments.

There’s a knock at the door, and Nicky’s voice calls, “Grandpa?”

“Come in, Nicky.”

The door opens, and all three of the kids step into the library, a little hesitantly.

“Is it time for dessert?” Frank asks, as if they’ve been talking of nothing else in here.

“Yes, but we need to tell – ” Nicky begins.

“I want to go to military boarding school for junior and senior year,” Sean blurts out. “That’s what’s been on my mind.”

Behind him, the other two do not roll their eyes, for once, but look eagerly at Frank for his response. It seems Sean’s convinced them that this is his own decision and that he has good reasons for it. Further, they want to enlist their grandfather’s help in telling Danny, who will almost certainly be pleased, but shocked, and shaken up at the thought of another break in his family.

“Well, then,” Frank says. “I think we’re going to need some pie.”

It’s not until they’re driving back to Eddie’s place in Silver Belle, in something of a stunned silence, that she thinks to ask: “Hey. Did Sydney get given the family codes?”

“No,” Jamie says. He turns to look at her, the streetlights and the swish of wipers against the rain casting him in rhythmic shadows and highlights as they pass through the quiet residential streets. “Linda was the only other in-law who knew them. Actually, it was pretty much because I was obsessing on the Templar 24/7 that Sydney left me. She didn’t know about it. She just thought I was bringing work home every night and it was getting in my head.”

“Oh.”

“Eddie?”

“Yeah?”

“Is this too much for you?”

He’s serious. She’s been dropped deep into a whole lot of Reagan family business she never asked to be part of.

Nobody’s ever trusted her like this. Nobody’s ever needed her like this. She’s never been so bone-deep certain that she has what it takes to help them, or at least she can figure it out on the fly.

And the last vestiges of the spectre of Sydney, who she never had reason to be jealous of, but on whom she sometimes projected her own latent fears, shrivels up and blows away like dust.

“I wouldn’t be anywhere else for the world,” she tells him.

 

* * * * *

 

Neither one of them can ever sleep well before a big day, and tonight they’re both racked with anticipation about the new gig, and reacting to Frank’s revelations. They’re curled up under a pile of quilts in Eddie’s bed, too twitchy to relax and too talkative to feel like making love, but carrying on a whole side conversation of stroking and caressing, punctuated with wandering kisses.

He tells her more about Joe: the silly childhood games they invented, the way they ganged up against Danny and Erin by being silent and devious. About talking to Joe, or his sense of his lingering presence, through Harvard and beyond, while he was trying to come to terms with his own call to serve. Often, someone who dies young is re-framed in virtue they couldn’t have claimed during their life, but Joe was special. He was born to help, to see and serve the best in everyone he encountered. He was the first of the siblings to decide he wanted to join the NYPD. Like Danny, he hadn’t gone to college, but had joined up as soon as he was able to.

He tells her what he remembers of the nightmarish sequence of events that saw him, Danny, Jackie, his father and grandfather ambush Malevsky’s drug drop. He describes Frank’s final, cold words to Malevsky, that still leave him shocked to think of, and his own white-hot anger that refused to be quenched even by watching the man who killed his brother – who tried to kill him – kill himself. It’s not a story that ever gets told out loud, not even in the Reagan house, and for the first time since then, Jamie feels himself, hears himself weeping for the frustrated rage that no longer had anywhere to be directed. It took a long time for that anger to begin to settle into something useful.

Eddie’s arms hold him tight, and she listens and absorbs every word and every tear until he is done. They lie together quietly after that, knowing it’s only one of many small bloodlettings to come in the months ahead.

At length, he tells her everything he can about Noble and his sister Bianca, who are still in WitSec, as far as he knows, having testified via video at the trial of Noble’s uncle and his boys. He even explained that Bianca put some serious moves on him that he didn’t exactly shut down, at the time, but he knew he’d be disappearing from her life one way or another before long anyway.

“I even asked for clarification,” he smiles wryly, “I didn’t want word to get back that I was getting a little _too_ deep into the role.”

“What’d you say?” Eddie asks him, curious. Her head is resting on his chest, and she has a leg woven somehow between his, and her arm is flung over his chest. He strokes her arm with the fingers of his free hand, loving the warm satiny smoothness, and the flutter of her breath over his skin.

“That she was interested. That she was hot and she knew it, and it would look weird if I didn’t have some reason to turn her down. I mean, sure, she was hot and all, but I think what got me was that she seemed to like _me_. And I wanted to get her away from the danger her family put her in. I don’t know how much she knew, but she was no innocent.”

“That could happen again, you know.”

“I suppose. But it sounds like we’re going to be sent out on short-term gigs for the most part, if Dad wants us to interact with as many of the unit as possible. Not a lot of time to warm up to anyone in particular.”

“I’m not worried,” she says, and her voice tells him it’s the truth. “I mean, sure, I’d prefer if you didn’t have to kiss anyone. I don’t need to be worrying about whose germs you’re bringing home with you. But undercover is undercover.”

“And it’s you I’m coming home to,” he replies. “That’s the main thing. I’m pretty sure we’d both be brought into any briefings about cases that might have any chance of connections getting that deep. Now that they know we’re together.”

He nuzzles kisses into the crown of her silky hair, and she purrs.

“Probably,” she says, stretching her legs down along his. “But there’s definitely gonna be hooker duty for me, Jamie, and you are just the type to send in to win someone’s confidence and get information out of. We’re probably going to have talk about this a lot.”

“Then we will. And I bet there are other couples working in the unit we can talk to about what works for them. We’ve got some pretty amazing people we can tap into for advice. Even Father Markhum.”

Eddie raises her head and eyes him, seeing that he’s serious.

“You want me to talk to a priest about being conflicted about having to dress and act like a prostitute while trying to be a good cop and a good girlfriend?”

“Actually, I think he’d understand it well if you explained if just like that.”

“Isn’t he your friend who’s usually one protest away from being defrocked?”

“Yup. Great guy. Not the most stringent of Catholics, but a really good listener and counsellor.”

“He have a girlfriend of his own hidden away or something?”

Jamie looks off to one side and back again, and she gets it. “Ohhhh. Shit. That’s gotta be rough.”

“On both of them.”

“Both priests?”

“Yup. Different parishes.”

“So they really would understand having to dress up for a part that goes against your essential self, but for the greater good, you get up and do it.”

“Probably, yes.”

“Huh.”

“He’s not the one who does pre-marriage counselling, though.”

Eddie cracks up at that, and buries her snickers in his chest. “I bet not!”

“Did you have a chance to think about that?”

“Sort of. I’m not _not_ interested in going. Mostly ‘cause I think we’re going to need all the help we can get, and I want to know more about what your family relies on to get through. What helps _you_ get through. But Jamie, you know I’m pretty close to being atheist.”

“I know.”

“You think I’m wrong, though.”

“No, but like we said to the kids when we were out at the festival, I think we probably give different names to the same kinds of feelings and inspirations. The Catholic thing is how I was raised, it’s what works for me. You know I’m not into dogmatic acceptance of anything.”

“Good thing, too,” she nudges his calf with her toes, and he smiles and kisses her as she raises her head again. “I know we have a whole lot of talking to do about church stuff, too. I’m not worried. Maybe I should be? I’m betting some of it’s not going to be easy.”

“Maybe not, but I have faith.”

“Uh huh,” she kisses his jaw, just under his ear. “So I gather. Father Jamie.”

“Oh, not you too,” he bundles her in his arms and rolls her over, shutting her up with distractingly warm kisses.

“But I have a confession,” she protests, low down. “There’s this really hot guy at work, and I can’t stop thinking about jumping him and making up for lost time.”

He looks down at her, her eyes alight as her fingers trace the muscles of his chest.

“Tell me about these distracting thoughts of yours,” he murmurs, kissing her again so her breath comes thick and panting. His hand slides down, over her breast, her ribs, her belly, and keeps going, “And keep talking… _or_ _I’ll stop._ ”


	14. Chapter 14

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Valentine's Day comes early!

Eddie stands with one hand on the rim of Silver Belle’s open driver door, looking over the low roof at the tall edifice of the One PP, at the unfamiliar buildings and trees and coffee stands. She used to relish this feeling, wide-awake and crackling with adrenaline. She’s not sure whether she’s missed it all this time, or if she was supposed to have outgrown it by now, but it’s back.

She closes the door gently and hip-checks it latched. No slammed doors for her girl.

She feels like a snail out of its shell, in the best and blackest of her three good office suits and neat leather flats. Her skin knows every fold and seam of every piece of her rugged uniform, unlike the light wool of her suit that lets in the winter damp. She misses the snug fit of her soft armor. It’s been her buffer between her small self and the dangers of the job for nearly five years. She knows how to get a deep breath in small stages while she’s strapped into it, even at a flat-out run. She misses the extra inch of height from her boots.

She’s used to rolling into her parking spot and trotting into the front entrance of the One-Two on autopilot, sliding into the welcoming, steady stream of friends and co-workers washing in and out of the building according to their tour schedule. Here on the Plaza, everyone and everything is unfamiliar and impatient, from the office staff and harried managers emerging from a line of family cars and honking taxi cabs, the click of important heels on wet pavement, the exasperated dance of umbrellas jockeying for space as they pass. Nobody knows she’s a cop, and none of the uniformed officers nearby nods in recognition and mutual respect. She’s invisible.

She’s _supposed_ to be invisible. This is what she’s here for. And this feeling climbing around the inside of her ribs and sparking fast twitches down her legs is a big part of why she became a cop: to be tested every day and find out what she’s capable of. She’s gotten too comfortable, attached to only one house and her first partner. She’s in danger of complacency.

She needs to re-learn to read and respond to every interaction, every scene, as if it’s new. They both do, she and Jamie. Learn to use their senses all over again, as much as their minds, to adapt to wherever they’re sent. Of course they will be assigned to roles they’re well-suited for, but they won’t have a fraction of their usual operating equipment. Just themselves and their wits.

He’s been her other sidearm for five years, just like she told him. Her extra vest. Not anymore.

“Ready, partner?” Jamie asks, his arms resting on Silver Belle’s roof as he watches her.

“Let’s do this.”

Words they’ve exchanged thousands of times, on and off duty. She appreciates them deeply today.

They don’t hold hands on the way in the employee’s entrance or anything, but Jamie’s quick, hidden touch on her elbow as they approach the security gate feels good. They de-holster and unclip and dump everything into the battered gray bin for the X-Ray, and the guard grumbles genially about Monday mornings as he wands them and waves them through.

It’s 0745 hours on Monday morning, and the two most recent additions to the Undercover unit have arrived for their first day of training. Some people at the One PP have known Jamie since he was a little kid, when the fourteenth floor was still Henry’s domain. Frank has arranged to see them for a quick lunch upstairs, on their break. It should be the friendliest entry into a new job situation they can imagine, but the work they’re there to train for may be dangerous, deadly dull, often sickening, never predictable and they’ll be limited in how much they can tell each other if they’re not placed on the same operation. The chances of that, they know, are slim.

“Reagan and Janko, for Sergeant Vance,” Jamie says to Emma, the senior Concierge, who peaks her pencilled brows in disbelief at his formality.

“Like we don’t all know, kiddo. Go on up to Six, hang a left and look for Room 614. Good luck.”

“Thanks.”

Emma gives Eddie a friendly nod as they turn and head towards the bank of elevators along the interior wall of the lobby.

Room 614 is smallish and brightly lit by overhead florescent lights and tall windows that overlook Madison Street at its rainswept, late-winter bleakest. There are three men sitting at the long gray classroom tables when they enter. They’re all massive men, one black and two white, two with shaved heads and all with diamond or gold stud earrings, ratty sweatshirts stretched over thick biceps and muscled abs, legs twitching with the effort of sitting still. If she passed them on the street she’d be employing all her observational skills to note their position and movements until she was well clear of them.

But these guys are definitely cops, to be sitting here unaccompanied. They only thing she can’t tell is whether they’re NYPD or not, because the color of the day today is dark red or maroon, and she can’t spot any on them.

They look up. One sneers openly at her, looking her up and down like a show pony, and the other two merely stare at them both. She’s small and fit and has a decent rack on her, and she’s used to the looks, especially when she’s a little dressed up, but she’s come to expect better behavior from the cops she works with. She eyes them back calmly.

She knows she’s had the rare advantage of working with a hundred decent men and only a handful of overgrown fratboys and a few genuine misogynistic assholes, like Maldonaldo, and that bad ‘70’s cop-show reject Hoffman. She wondered at first if being Jamie’s partner gave her a certain immunization from the treatment that many female cops deal with on the regular, but after a few months she realized that, no, the One-Two is a tight, friendly ship that she was lucky to join for her first assignment.

Besides, she’s taught Jam-o a thing or two about letting her handle her own business, unless she’s truly neck-deep. Though he’s usually hovering by the time she’s up to her knees.

Jamie does not react or try to protect her now, either. He just nods politely and say, “Morning.”

These men strike her as posing. Alone, they’d probably look her in the eye. Together, they each fall into the Big Tough Man routine.

“So fresh they don’t even smell,” one of the white guys comments, to nobody in particular. The black guy behind him grunts.

“Thanks. We try,” Jamie returns, without any inflection whatsoever, and pulls out a chair at the next table. Eddie sits on the table itself so she can look the trio in the face. Sweetening up large cranky men is something she knows how to do. And this is definitely a test.

“I’m Janko. He’s Reagan. Who’re you?” she asks the nearest.

“Depends. On a good day or a bad day?”

Eddie considers this, “Is today a good day for you?”

“Mebbe.”

“Okay, well, let’s say it’s a good day. I know I’m having a good day. Treated myself to a mocha, ‘cause you’re right, this our very first day here, so this one – ” she jerks her chin towards Jamie, who is tooling around with his phone in his lap, one ankle resting on the opposite knee, “had to put up with my caffeinated ass all the way down here. I’m out of the office for once, get to drive my own car. So yeah, I’d say it’s a good day. You figured out who you are yet, buddy?”

The white guy farthest from them smiles slowly, and the other two relax into broad grins.

“Boucher,” says the nearest to her, and holds out a great paw for her to shake. “He’s Vance,” he thumbs the white guy beside him, “And that’s Pascal. Nice start, Janko. Friendly, controlling your emotions, inviting trust. Tell us your thought process coming in.”

These, she realizes, are their classroom instructors, or at least Sergeant Vance is. The others might be part of the scene setup.

Jamie, too, has unwound and is leaning in to shake hands, grinning now.

“We knew you were on the job,” Eddie begins, “You couldn’t be sitting here otherwise. But I didn’t see any color of the day on you, so I wasn’t sure if you were NYPD or visiting. Then I wasn’t sure if the attitude was because you were just brought in and still in character, or if you were genuinely sick of new kids coming in, if this was an exercise. Either way, we played it the same.”

“We? I only saw you engaging.”

There’s no derision in Vance’s voice, only observation.

“Yeah, we’ve done versions of this one before,” Jamie replies, and begins outlining their play with his hands. “Eddie turned her back on the door as a sign of trust,” he says, “But I had eyes on the door. I could see ten feet down the hallway that way,” he points, “And I could see reflections of any movements from the other way in the whiteboard surface. When I’m out of uniform, I don’t look like any kind of threat to guys who look like you, so I might as well play up the difference and come off like a non-threatening, nerdy office jockey. Eddie’s the obvious choice to try to warm you guys up a little, not me, so she went for it. And I had my phone set to record everything, and my thumb on the side button I’ve got programmed for 911. Figured this was a walk-in pop quiz.”

He waves his phone in the air, and as Boucher raises a finger, Jamie adds, “Not _really_ recording. I know better than that. But I had the app queued up and ready to go.”

“And while he was on security and surveillance and covering my back, I played to the cute-chatty-blonde type, mirrored your language, gave you a personal tidbit and teased Reagan here right in front of you. Girl does that, her guy friend is clearly no threat, and she’s practically asking you to step in and show her your alpha stripes. Lots of useful information in the way guys hold themselves and talk while they’re BS’ing around together. We both kept our posture open but didn’t try to mirror each other or look at each other, or look like we were a unit, so again, no threat to you.”

“And what kind of weapons are we carrying?” Boucher continues.

She and Jamie eye each other, and revert to their standard training.

“Glock 19? Or do you like the Sig?” Jamie asks. “I figure even you guys don’t get to carry blades around this building.”

“Trick question. You will _never_ know who’s packing what. Anything can be weaponized. In some cases, gang-bangers don’t carry anything at all, especially if they’re already on Probation and have no-weapons conditions, like many of them have since they were kids. That doesn’t mean they aren’t skilled and dirty fighters. We have three teams out there who’ve gotten inside fight schools that teach high level weaponless combat to bangers and wannabes. We’re trying to at least pull level with their techniques and training.”

“Huh,” Eddie nods. “I’ve seen some of the results, I think – we’re talking the guys who know their anatomy and do serious damage just with hands and feet, right?”

“Or whatever weapons of opportunity they can find.” Boucher says. He turns his chair, as does Vance, so they’re all in a loose ring facing at each other, with Eddie still up on the table trying not to swing her feet. She’s having fun now. “You wanna maybe get down from there?” he asks her, “Or d’you like the extra height?”

She flushes a little and hops down, pulling out the chair next to Jamie.

“Okay,” Vance speaks next, “Debriefing. This is not Academy. We use names, not command titles. We talk like the people we work with on the street, we swear a fuck of a lot and we do not say a word about how much fuckin’ _fun_ this all is, or how many years a bad case or two carves off your soul. Straight up, you got maybe five years before the bad shit really gets into your head. We try to boot you out before then and cycle others in. We can’t always. Right now there’s like forty, that’s four-oh, Undercover and Plainclothes officers out on stress leave, and probably a hundred who should be, but we can’t spare them without disrupting long-term ops. Questions?”

They shake their heads.

“Good. We don’t put our hands up around here, either. Shout out questions if you have them. I’ll be running classroom lectures for you and a few others in the mornings, for the next two weeks. I am a Sergeant, but you need to forget that yes-sir-no-sir bullshit _now_ , if you wanna live through a hot scene. Call me Vance. I’m gonna be filling your pretty heads with the history of New York plainclothes work, Intelligence, and Counterterrorism, and how we fit into the Joint Terrorism Task Force with the FBI. Reason for all the general knowledge is, we don’t yet know how we’re going to use you. Might put you on cyberintelligence, social media gathering, public-space anti-crime duty, or into the kind of undercover infiltration work you’ve both done before. That’ll depend on how you perform. Capisce?”

“Capisce,” Eddie says,

“Good. Detective Sergeant Boucher here will be leading physical training, starting in a couple of weeks. Hard. Core. Mat. Time. Plan on hurting. Also improv acting, character backgrounding and using verbal codes and hand signals. Sergeant Pascal just came by for shits and giggles today after his workout. ‘Bye, Pascal.”

“’Bye, kids,” Pascal waves his fingers at them, as he gets up and lumbers out of the room. “Big fan of your dad. Big fan.”

“He’s not really, is he,” Jamie says.

“Not at all,” Boucher replies. “But he won’t be no bother to you.”

“Okay,” Jamie absorbs this and moves on. Eddie gathers he’ll be happy if that’s the last he hears about it, but doubts it will be.

“After we get you all hyped up, we’re gonna send you back to school,” Vance continues. “Assuming you get through the first month here, we’ll send you to the John Jay College for the Advanced Narco Training course, one week full time – that’ll be your _official_ In-Service Training Credits for the year – and then we’re gonna be introducing you to some of our working confidential informants. Say – you got kids, either of you?”

“Nope.” Eddie replies. She’d expected that.

“Planning on it anytime soon?”

“Year or two, maybe? Not just now.”

“Good. We can only use parents and pregnant women on non-contact work, for reasons I’m sure I don’t need to explain. No harm and no disrespect if you do get pregnant, but you need to report it as soon as you know, so we can pull you back if you’ve infiltrated a group, or you’re working in one of the high-stress task forces. You don’t want to be chasing child molesters across cyberspace – or Central Park – while trying to hatch your own.”

“I figured as much.”

Vance is talking as though he expects to have them around for far longer than the year they were led to expect, she thinks. Which is fine, and pretty much guarantees them major promotions afterwards, but she hadn’t banked on more than a year of this, for the very reasons Vance is warning her about.

“Good. Boucher has laptops to sign out to you both. They’re for note-taking and online quizzes and scenario training only, and they will be signed back over at the end of the day. You can stay after class to study from them, and in fact you should plan on it, because there will be regular tests. Now. Here’s what I know about you two: You’ve both shown good aptitude and interest in undercover work and intelligence gathering. You were partners until recently, when you started a personal relationship, and got recommended to me for a career-building opportunity and to work apart. Hooray. Reagan speaks decent textbook Spanish, and you, Janko, speak colloquial Serbian and a bit of Hungarian. We’re gonna use that. You’re both way overdue for a shakeup of partners, and you shouldn’t be working together at all, except that by all accounts you’re damn near psychic together and frankly, I haven’t decided yet _what_ to do with you. We get to throw all kinds of rules out the window if it benefits the NYPD. Looking at you both now, you’re too squeaky-clean to pass for street criminals, but you might surprise me. Questions so far?”

“I did hooker duty on a sting once,” Eddie says, almost defensively, “but it was dark and I was in full makeup and the guys at the club were beyond smashed, so it hardly mattered what I actually looked like.”

“You and every decent looking lady cop,” Boucher grunts, revealing a whole lot of detail about the decade he grew up in and his outlook on life and women. He’s right, though, in his way: pretty much every attractive, feminine-looking female officer gets asked to play a hooker now and then. Only very recently have a few of the male officers gone undercover as club twinks or bears, as the gay scene becomes more mainstream, and gay violence and drug rings become better understood.

She eyes Jamie for a split second. Hmm. He’d make a very pretty piece of gym bait. She may or may not tell him that. But Jamie speaks up.

“You probably also know I participated in a long op involving a whole family caught up in white-collar fraud,” Jamie says, flipping open his notepad and clicking his pen. “Whole lot of flirting going on with my drug and fraud contact, but it worked. We sent him and his sister to WitSec, and their family still has my photo, I’m sure of it. My point is, they’ve got a whole lot of reasons to hate me. They wanted him dead for turning informant _and_ for being gay, or bi, or whatever he really was. Shaming them among their set, more than anything, I think.”

Well. Her boy does still pull out surprises now and then.

“Know that too. We have some ideas. We’ll get to that. Speaking of photos…”

_Oh, no. Still?_

“I heard the story of how you guys tried to get ahead of those cute Hampton getaway photos. I don’t know if you’ve gone looking lately, but you should know they’ve pretty much disappeared from the Web. Just some traces left on archived pages and things. But yes, they are out there, and even though your names aren’t included, you’re clearly NYPD cops. That and Reagan’s old Jimmy Riordan caper are complicating factors. Janko, how’d you feel about hair dye?”

“We have a meetup every couple of months. I’ve been thinking about going back to dark brown at some point anyway. You think I should?”

“Not just yet, but be ready to. That won’t help Reagan here, with the Sanfino uncles still mighty unhappy with you, but we are confident they don’t know your real identity, so that’s something. Maybe send you back in to stir up the hornet’s nest, listen for chatter and see who’s controlling what these days. What d’you think of that?”

“I still get to help find a way out for the innocent bystanders, and try to turn any good prospects into informants, I’m in.”

“You’ve thought about that case since then.”

“I have. Just like to turn over possible alternatives to old outcomes in my head sometimes.”

Vance leans forward. “Then one of your lessons, son, needs to be learning to let ‘em go. You will lose some people. Innocents among them. And you will have to let some truly evil motherfuckers walk, to avoid compromising an op. Can you do that?”

“Have done, sir. Vance.”

Vance eyes him very seriously, and nods. Boucher coughs, and they turn to see him drumming his fingers on two rugged Toughbook laptops.

“Enough small talk. Sign here. Sign the next column when you turn them back in. If you’re studying late, it’ll be Detective Sergeant Garcia who takes them back. Let’s get to work.”

Signing the page reminds Eddie that they need to remember all of these early interactions – especially these – and journal them later on, without having spoken together, so as to get two independent versions of events.

They say you need two separate brains to be able to work effectively undercover. She might as well start learning how to put one to work taking mental notes to jot down later. Maybe she can encode some thoughts under cover of a personal memo or e-mail in her phone, during their quick lunchbreak with Frank, eight floors up. They must get a break sometime, right?

Looking at Boucher and Vance’s eager faces as they prepare to put their fresh meat through its paces, she’s not so sure.

But it doesn’t really matter.

She hasn’t been this psyched up since her first day of Academy. And for the first time in her life as an only child, she knows what it’s like to want to spill as much as she’s able to a relative. Bojan, as her cousin and fellow officer, will be all over this.

More than that, he’ll be proud she’s part of his family. That's something she hasn't felt sure of in a long time.

 

* * * * *

 

Nicky pushes the steam-fogged glass door open, and steps out of the cold night into warmth and noise and the most amazing smells of tomato and fresh bread and spices.

“Hey! You made it!” Dale greets her.

“I did! Sorry I’m so late. Traffic was terrible.”

Dale stands up, and in between shaking hands and stepping closer, they end up in an awkward hug, which is still nice. She hasn’t seen him since the New Music festival in the Hamptons – since the night that Marjolaine was attacked. They’ve e-mailed and texted a few times since then, and he’s reiterated his invitation to have her come to The Boots’ next Brooklyn gig as his guest.

All four Boots are arranged around three tables pulled close together in the pizzeria, with a few girlfriends and hangers-on milling around grabbing slices and soft drinks. Nicky gets quite the once-over from a few of them, and flustered, she turns to Jack and Tasha. The three of them are easily the most overdressed in the crowd, but everyone seems to be approving of them, so…she’s really not sure what to think, or what Dale might have told his band about her.

“Uh, Dale, this is my cousin Jack, and his friend Tasha. Jack was at the Hamptons festival, too. They’re gonna have dinner here and then we’ll meet up later at the gig.”

Dale shakes hands with them both. He has to look up at a slight angle to the very clean-cut Jack, in clean blue jeans and a button-down shirt, in contrast to the ripped jeans, floppy plaid overshirts and signature green Doc Marten boots of the band.

“Wait. That Jack?” he looks at Nicky, who nods confirmation. “You’re the one who jumped in to help that girl?”

“Well, me and my brother, yeah.”

“Man, I wish your brother was here, too. Look, we'll get your tickets refunded and comped. That was badass, seriously. C’mon. There’s like a ton of food.”

After that, it feels like they’re all still hanging out after the festival performance. The guys in the band, all university students, are just nice, friendly local boys of Irish and Scottish roots, and most of them, like Dale, have invited friends. They’re bemused and delighted with their own success, excited to be playing a decent sized venue in town and getting paid for it. They’re good, and they know they’re good, but it’s their genuine love of the music and each other that keeps people coming back to see them.

“Whyn’t you say Jack was coming, too?” Dale asks her, as they find seats. “I’d have put him on the list, no problem,”

“Well, I didn’t want to sound like I was asking a favor or anything. I mean, we only met the one time, so...”

“No, no. It’s cool. I wanted to do something for them, anyway, when the cops told us what happened. I feel like we were already friends or something right when we met, you know? Just waiting for a chance to catch up.”

“Old souls or something?” Nicky laughs, “Or maybe distant Irish cousins?”

“ _Better_ be distant,” Dale returns, and Nicky glows a little. She’s been idly daydreaming about seeing him again for two months, and he’s just as open and direct and friendly as she remembered.

Jack and Tasha have fallen quickly into conversation and pizza with Oisín, the drummer, and Dale’s younger brother Kevin, who plays fiddle and bass guitar. Kevin wants to hear how Jack learned to take down a creep and pin him to a wall, and Jack, pacificist though he is, launches into an explanation. Nicky figures she can leave them to settle in, and focuses her attention on Dale.

“So how’ve you been?” she asks. “How’s school going?”

Dale and Oisín, she knows, are at Boston U together, having moved up together from high school friends to university roommates. Kevin, and their fourth member Giles, are also roommates at U Mass, just a few minutes away. The four alternated sharing practice spaces at each campus for a while, but now they timeshare a proper rehearsal studio with two other local Boston bands.

“Oh, pretty good. Graduating this June in Physics, minor in Math. Don’t know yet what’ll happen after that. Maybe see about a few advanced courses, try for grad school, but that’d mean giving up the band. Maybe just see what happens with the band over the summer. Oisín’s graduating this June, too. Psych major. Kevin and Giles, who knows when. Year or two, maybe. What about you?”

“I’m on track to graduate, too! Double majoring in Sociology and Crim.” She takes a breath. The sooner she gets Dale’s honest reaction, the better. “Actually, I’ve, uh, I’ve just written the Officer Entrance Exam for the NYPD.”

“No way! Serious?”

“Totally serious.”

“Wow. I mean, you don’t look anything like a cop.”

He sits back and examines her, and she quickly twists her hair up behind her neck, and tries to mimic her mother’s sternest expression.

“Oh, there it is,” he says. “Your uncle’s a cop too, right? The one who was at the festival?”

“Yup. Uncle Jamie. And my other uncle, Jack’s dad. And our grandpa. And our great-grandpa.”

 _And Eddie_ , she nearly says, but she’s not entirely sure how to classify Eddie just now. Calling her “Aunt Eddie” doesn’t feel quite right, though it won’t be long before that’s her formal legal connection – but Eddie’s more of a big sister or cousin, just as Jamie’s more of a big brother than an uncle.

“What? That’s crazy. That’s like a whole family business.”

“That’s pretty much what we call it. I mean, it was like growing up in a station house sometimes, so I don’t think it’ll be too much of a shock when I get started.”

She’s so relieved that Dale hasn’t gone all anti-cop or started looking at her weird that she’s babbling on, she realizes.

“Wicked. When d’you find out if you’re in?”

“Oh, there’s a lot of steps to go,” she waves vaguely. “Medical, Interview, psych eval, job standards physical test, all that. If everything goes well, I could start Academy as early as September, but I might need more time to get all buff for the physical.”

She really likes the look in Dale’s eyes, at that.

“Well, shit,” he says. “I never thought of lady cops as cute before, but…”

“What about a lady cop who’s memorized every song on your CD?”

“Did you?”

“Of course I did! Actually, I was playing around with some harmonies to your ‘Let Me Down Easy’ cover.”

“No way. You sing? Like for real?”

“Yeah, a bit. Years of choirs in church and school, and voice lessons in high school.”

“No kidding. That’s wicked cool.”

There’s flirting, and then there’s falling into something so easily it’s like remembering the steps of an old dance. Dale seems actually speechless for a moment, gazing at her with those blue eyes of his glowing in his freckled face. It hits her with a rush of excitement in her tummy that Dale’s spent the last couple of months looking forward to seeing her again, too.

It’s a shame he lives up in Boston, and isn’t in town much, she thinks. Maybe New York will bring the band back more often…and Boston isn’t too far a road trip now and then…

“I'm so glad you came tonight,” he tells her, in a voice meant for her alone.

“Me too,” she says softly.

She hears Jack laughing then, the rare rumbly belly laugh that starts off slow and then takes him over, like Uncle Jamie, and looks up. He and Tasha have apparently been playing along with a silly improv comedy routine at their table, everyone keeping it going as long as they possibly could until someone broke – and it was Jack who did. From the look on his and Tasha’s faces, they’re pretty glad they came, too.

Tasha’s watching Jack as if she can’t quite wrap her head around it – her old friend from way back in Kindergarten, grown tall and well-built all of a sudden, and getting himself on guest lists for jumping into help a girl, and being all cool with the band and things. Tasha herself is one of those kids who has barely changed over time, except to gain a couple inches of height and fine cheekbones since puberty, with enviable swoopy curves and a mass of natural black curls framing her dark eyes and classically Greek face. She’s always been schoolyard and lunchtime buddies with Jack, and their families are friendly through Church, if not close.

Nicky hopes things work out for them. Jack’s pretty far gone over Tasha. It seems to be mutual.

“How much longer we got?” Kevin calls.

“Twenty minutes or so, then everyone back on the bus to the site,” Oisín says.

“Oh, I drove my Mom’s car,” Nicky tells Dale, “Maybe we should just meet up there?”

“I bet you can park in the alley behind here,” he suggests “There’s a couple spots there. We’ll be coming back here after the show anyway. It’s an all-ages gig, so we try to make sure everyone can come meet us after if they want. Maybe head to a bar later on, we’ll see. You guys come on the bus with us. It’s a bit crowded but it’ll be fun. Hey – I wanna hear the harmony line you worked out. You’ll come up when we do that one, right? We’ve never had a girl sing with us. And you look really great tonight.”

 

* * * * *

 

Sunday dinners have been pushed back to leisurely lunches, since last Christmas, in order to accommodate the early Monday starts of various members of the family. Sean and Jack have football practice before school. Erin’s started swimming again before work, in keeping with her New Year’s resolutions. Jamie and Eddie have to get up by six in order to review their notes and be ready for class at 0800 hours. Those who want to stay later can still stay, and if not, the extra quiet time they have at home in the evening, before the week spins round again, is welcome.

This Sunday brings a flood of news, and Jamie decides he’ll stick around as long as he can. Between Nicky’s clearance to the Medical exam stage of her NYPD application, Sean and Danny’s upcoming campus visit to Valley Forge Military Academy in Pennsylvania, and Jamie and Eddie’s first week in the Undercover unit, the chatter has been loud and nonstop.

He’s sorry that Eddie’s missing all the updates, but today is her monthly visit with Mira, and their Skype date with Jelena and Bojan in Serbia. She set out for Katonah this morning just as he was leaving for Mass. To each their Communion. He’s already used to the sound of her voice among them, and he feels her absence beside him.

He has a sudden memory of past dinners, with Linda and Danny sitting between the boys to keep them from tussling, just as his parents did with combinations of all four of them at times. With a sensation a little like jerking out of a near-sleep, he flashes forward to himself and Eddie doing the same with their kids, not too many years in the future. Who will be around that table? How much longer will Pop be with them? Will Sean be off in training or on a mission, and will Nicky’s tours keep her from Sunday dinner? Will Jack be off at college?

Danny sees his gaze fall on the boys, and he catches his eyes and nods slowly. He’s been thinking of little else himself, lately, Jamie knows.

“You got to sing, like, _with the band_?” Sean’s chin is nearly on the table.

“She was awesome. Everyone loved it,” Jack says, honestly.

Basking in her cousins’ approval, Nicky glows. “It was really fun,” she admits. “I only ever sang at Church events and school before. But yeah, it went great. We practiced a couple times on the bus, and then they brought me up for their encore number. I was shaking so bad. But then Oisín dragged me into a sort of country-dance during the bridge, and we were all laughing too hard to be nervous.”

“And Dale kissed you on stage, in front of everyone,” Jack can’t help poking at her.

At this, Erin’s head snaps up, along with everyone else’s.

“Did he now?” she asks, amused. She’s been hearing snippets about Dale since the festival, and this next installation has included all sorts of surprises.

“Right on stage!” Henry shakes his head slowly. As if he hadn’t seen all that and much more, on the stages where the legends of the music halls played their New York tours, when he was a young man.

“Augh! You guys. It was just, like, a peck on the cheek when I went off stage. That’s all,” Nicky glowers across the table at Jack. “It was just supposed to be nice. It _was_ nice. And what about Tasha?”

“What about Tasha? I didn’t kiss _her_.” Jack squirms, avoiding his father’s look.

“Well, if you didn’t, you should’ve. She sure wanted you to,” Nicky returns.

“What? How do you know?”

“Yeah, how’d you know?” Sean asks, curious.

“It was pretty obvious.”

So things are working out just fine for Jack and Tasha, Jamie thinks. He’s glad. However long it might last, they’re really good for each other, and there’s nothing like falling for your best friend and having it returned.

“Are you planning on seeing this Dale again?” Frank asks, “He certainly sounds smitten with you.”

“It’s a mutual smit,” suggests Sean. “A smit-smit.”

“I don’t know! I hope so? I mean, he’ll be busy with school until Grad, anyway, so not for a long time. It was just a nice night, all right?”

“And he said you’d make a ‘really cute lady cop’,” Jack can’t help himself. Nicky’s jaw drops and she gasps at the betrayal as he goes on, mercilessly: “I should also mention that our famous feminist then said _absolutely nothing_ about the stereotype of policewomen all being totally butch, or the hot-policewoman thing?”

Jamie and Erin both erupt in howls of laughter at this, and Henry utters a quiet “Good Lord!” from his end of the table. Danny swivels his head and stares at his eldest.

“Jack!” Nicky cries in protest. “It wasn’t like that. He didn’t mean it that way.”

“He called you a ‘lady cop’, and you let him live?” Sean returns.

“This conversation has taken a slightly adult turn, for a Sunday,” Frank admonishes. “I think we can agree there are times and places to confront stereotypes about women in all sorts of authority, but we don’t need to do that right here.”

“Why not?” asks Erin, with a wolfish grin. “Please, say more about the proper time and place to discuss gender stereotypes that aren’t the family dinner table, Dad.”

“Oh, here we go,” Danny raises his eyes to the heavens.

Frank raises his hands in surrender. “I’m just saying, could we maybe leave colorful language about policewomen and gender politics for another time, especially from my seventeen year old grandson?”

“I was saying it was wrong!” Jack defends himself. “And that Nicky, of all people, would’ve said so, too, but she’s all goofy over this guy. And you know, his brother’s not all that thrilled with cops. Not at all. I was talking to him more than you were, in the bus.”

“I know,” Nicky says, more soberly. “Kevin and Giles have some pretty entrenched views about police. Mostly from the news.”

“What did they say?” asks Sean. Jack looks at Nicky, who is not smiling anymore. It’s she who answers.

“The usual stuff, only pretty watered down ‘cause they knew I’d hear. That cops are racist, that they’re bullies who assume everyone’s a criminal, and they’re basically hired to keep poor people in prison. But Dale told them they were wrong, that I wasn’t like that.”

“He said _you_ weren’t like that,” Jack points out. “He didn’t say cops aren’t like that.”

“He put you on the comp list for stepping up and helping Marjolaine and the cops,” she reminds him. “He said that was badass.”

“Nicky!”

“Sorry, Grandpa. I was just quoting. My point is, Dale’s not anti-cop, even if his brother gets his ideas from watching hyped-up newscasts.”

And besides, Jamie intuits, Nicky knows they’re not entirely wrong. There’s a vast and shameful amount that needs to be confronted and fixed about the interactions between the police and the citizens they police, in every city of the country, and Nicky knows it, too. In her case, it’s a large part of why she’s joining up instead of complaining, or turning activist like her old friend Chrissie.

“Nevertheless, and language aside, there are going to be a lot of people among Dale’s groupies who aren’t comfortable with a policewoman in their midst. It’s just something to pay attention to.” Erin says. “College band audiences aren’t exactly known for always being law-abiding.”

Sean mimics taking a drag on a joint, and Danny smacks his hand. “That’s enough of that. And there won’t be any where you’re going, or if there is, you better be the one to report it.”

“Sir, yes Sir.”

“Attaboy. And salute.”

“Not out of uniform, _Sir_ ,” Sean sasses back, and Danny messes up his hair for him.

Sean, Jamie is happy to see, is slowly returning to his old self, now that it’s settled that he’s actually going to try for a berth at military school. Danny’s taken it surprisingly well. In fact, Danny’s finally come clean that he desperately wanted the same thing, as a teenager, which Jamie and Erin already knew. Danny already knew he wanted a military career, and of all the kids, he needed to get away from the loving but claustrophobic Reagan house. He’d only hesitated because he knew his mother and grandmother would be utterly wrecked at the thought that he’d want to leave so young, and so he’d waited until he graduated high school Then he’d kissed Linda goodbye, and lit out for the Marines and Camp Lejeune, a whole country away.

If Jack is more like Jamie than anyone else in the family, Sean is all Danny. Danny gets him, for all they clash antlers now and then. Danny knows that Sean’s anger at Linda’s death is far from diminishing, and that as the person closest to Linda in Sean’s mind, Danny gets the blame in Sean’s unconscious – all the moreso because Sean knows it isn’t true, but needs a human face to project his anger towards. That’s not going to begin to fade until he’s away from the family for a while and can get some perspective.

Sean’s never been truly tested by anything, always treated as the littlest kid at the table, and he needs something hard to get his back up against and find his own identity, away from all the big personalities of the family. There’s no point in holding him at home for two and a half more years just because he’s young.

Jamie tunes back into the conversation swirling around him.

“I don’t know. Boston’s not that far, but it’s still a long way,” Nicky is saying to Erin.

Jamie suddenly gets why Erin, Danny and Frank are all eyeing Nicky with slight concern. Of course they want her to be happy, but this might be the last few months she has left to have some fun as a normal college kid before she starts preparing for Academy in earnest. After that, she will need to be totally focussed on training and personal development.

Somehow he can’t see Nicky and Dale navigating a committed relationship between the demands of the Academy and NYPD life, and a growing musical career, but stranger things have happened. He couldn’t honestly say he’d suggest they try it out, though.

He’s just arrived at that thought when Frank says, gently, “Nicky, Academy and the lead-up to it are no time for distractions or major life-events. You’re going to need to rely on your old friends who can support you without you seeing them for a while. You’ll have more new friends than you can deal with all at once, if everything works out as it should.”

“Nobody’s saying don’t see Dale forever,” Erin points out hastily. “But honey, Grandpa’s right. If there’s something between you worth cultivating, he’ll understand you need to focus. And if he doesn’t understand that about police life, then…”

“You guys make it sound like I’m planning to run away and be a groupie, or let some guy take my eye off the ball,” Nicky complains.

Jamie feels badly for her. She was riding such a high, what with nailing an unexpected performance on stage with the band, and finding a mutual crush who sounds like a great guy, all things considered. He points out, not unkindly, “Your mom’s right. Nobody’s saying you gotta drop him, but you should probably explain to him exactly what it’s going to be like from now until after your Probationary year.”

“I’m just glad you got to sing on stage, Nicky,” Henry speaks up, with a wobble in his voice, “And I’m glad I got to tread the boards with you, once. Because you won’t be doing too much of that as a police officer either. You all should shut up and let this young lady enjoy the time she has left. She’s not a recruit yet. This Dale kid sounds like he knows a good thing when he sees it.”

“Thank you,” Nicky says, looking up from her plate finally. “I’m really glad I got to sing with you, too. I _know_ all this, really. I don’t know why you all seem to think I need protecting from myself if I have a good time out and meet a guy who likes me.”

The adults fall silent, a little shamed.

“It’s not only that we don’t want you to get hurt,” Frank says, at length. “Though that’s true, too. You have a lot to learn in a very short time. Sean, too.”

Nicky holds up a slim hand. “Can we at least wait till we get there?” she asks. “ _You all raised us_ , you know. You might trust us a little. And everything is going to change forever, really soon, if Sean and I both pass our interviews, and we won’t have much time left to be like this together.”

Her tone makes Frank back right off. Jamie’s impressed.

After lunch, nobody commandeers the kitchen for a private chat. Properly chastened by Nicky, and reminded very clearly that the kids really aren’t kids anymore, they’re all feeling like they want to stay together as much as possible. Dishes are washed and leftovers packaged as fast as possible by many hands, and then Henry suggests an old classic film. It’s a perfect solution. They all need to sit back and ponder their words and reactions, and nobody wants to spark an intense discussion or a fight tonight.

With popcorn, hot chocolate and “Strangers on a Train” all in preparation, Jamie takes a moment to send a quick text before settling down in the cozy rec room downstairs:

_Hi from everyone here. We’re about to watch a Hitchcock. Let’s take Nicky out soon. I love you so damn much._

* * * * *

 

It’s getting on for three o’clock on Sunday afternoon at Mira and Bradley’s house. Eddie is sitting with her mother and stepfather at their small kitchen table, over the remnants of a late lunch.

The cousins in Belgrade are six hours ahead. It’s not a terribly large gap, but with everyone’s busy schedules, they’ve worked out that nine pm Sunday in Belgrade is the best time to connect with everyone. Bojan is generally free then, at least on his current schedule rotation. Jelena and her doctor husband are always home then, and their two daughters are finished with homework, friends and dance lessons. It’s become a monthly event, with extra calls on birthdays.

Eddie’s come to look forward to these brief retreats. It’s ironic how she suddenly has two family Sunday dinners to choose between, after years of solitary existence as a single woman in the city. The hour to herself on the highway is refreshing. She and Jamie are accustomed to spending the majority of their waking hours together, but they certainly notice the difference when they’ve had some breathing space alone. And Mira is so much more calm, so much more the brilliant, gracious woman that Eddie remembers from her childhood.

Both Bradley and the cousins have played a part in helping Mira find her way back. Eddie feels badly that she wasn’t able to have a deeper impact, but she’s starting to understand that she herself reminded Mira of the past as much as anything. For a mother, that must be a particularly hellish part of the journey back to selfdom: when your only child is a constant reminder of your own complicity in your husband’s crimes. Eddie can’t imagine what that must be like. No wonder they scratched at each other constantly for years, all the more hurtful because they’d been so close.

As for Eddie, still deeply unsettled by her father’s medical situation and post-incarceration fantasy plans, spending more time with her mother in person and connecting with her Serbian side has been just as timely. It’s not all easy. Even if Mira has limited tolerance for hearing about Armin and his doings, she still has a right to know, and Eddie needs to talk about it.

It’s easy enough to explain the concept of data mining to Mira and Bradley, and why Armin’s next big plan is both brilliant and ill-fated as ever. Eddie makes it clear she has no intention of going along with Armin’s plan for running a laundry information-harvesting service, especially not with her as a business advisor.

“But the thing is, I’m not even sure he was even thinking clearly, Mom. I know he’s always been like that, jumping from one big idea to the next, and trying to carry everyone along with him. But I have to wonder now if that was more of a symptom than a cause. They’ve had him on sedatives for years. I just found out from the staff there. And I have to ask you something. They told me he was diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, right after he started his sentence. Didn’t he ever…there weren’t any signs before…?”

“Of that? No. Just your father being his usual reckless self, not thinking of anyone else.”

Mira’s eyes flicker away from Eddie’s, and she gets up from the table.

“I cannot hear any more right now.”

Of course, Mira must have known. As Armin’s legal wife for the first three years of his incarceration, she’d have been informed of all his medical updates. Something else she’d kept from Eddie, out of misdirected love. And denial.

“Sorry,” Eddie says softly, as her mother disappears. “I missed her usual cue…”

Bradley shakes his head. “Not your fault. She’s been mostly fine talking about Armin for some time now. I think meeting her cousins over the holidays has opened up a lot more of the past than she was prepared for. They had plans to go back to Europe when it was safe to return, you know, she and Armin.”

Eddie knows. She often heard her parents daydreaming about returning home in triumph, the two who had fulfilled the great American Dream, bringing their fortune to Budapest or Belgrade, to live in even greater splendor. They talked of sponsoring a young relative or two to go to America in their stead, to be their American sales agents, while they sent young Edit Marie to the best Swiss boarding and finishing schools and expanded their investment business model across Europe. Armin would tell little Eddie all about it, holding her up so she stood on top of his feet, and he would teach her to waltz around their dining room, spinning her visions of the beautiful gowns she would wear in her debut season as a young lady.

Seated instead at a table in her usual weekend jeans and sweater, overlooking the back garden of the house in Katonah, Eddie hears Mira’s footsteps fade down the hallway, and then the click of the bedroom door. Mira isn’t one for causing scenes, exactly, but she has a very Slavic way of becoming ever more remote and polite before simply excusing herself if nobody takes the hint.

Usually Eddie gets the hints. Not today, apparently, unless the countdown from hint to disappearance has shrunk dramatically.

“I just thought she should know about Dad’s current state. She doesn’t need to _do_ anything. I get that she doesn’t want anything more to do with him.”

“But he’s still your Dad, and you need someone to talk to about what you’re dealing with. And to talk to people who knew him when he was younger,” says Bradley, perceptively. “My dad had Alzheimer’s for twelve years before he passed away. I’m not saying that’s what Armin’s dealing with. Just that I get it. You need a reference point to make sure you’re remembering things right from before.”

 _I didn’t even get a chance to ask her about the cocaine use_ , Eddie thinks. She can’t quite imagine how her mother will respond to that, but she has to know. Somehow, Eddie, the five-year NYPD officer, has to ask her own mother if she was aware her husband used to take cocaine to get over the depressive events he kept hidden from everyone.

Not tonight.

“Yeah. But I guess…maybe I hoped she might just give a damn about him, you know? She has you, and I’m really glad about that, but…”

“I know,” her stepfather assures her. “They were together for twenty five years. And if either Mira or I start having cognitive problems, I’ll tell you now, Eddie, we’re in it for the long haul. People live longer these days. One or both of us could eventually have some kind of mental slippage, you never know. I’m not leaving Mira alone, even if she doesn’t recognize me, and she’s not leaving me, either.”

Eddie nods. It’s probably time they all sat down and talked about that as a family. It seems odd, now that she thinks of it, that as a perfectly healthy, relatively young NYPD cop, she’s got so much advanced crisis planning in her Personnel file, from death insurance beneficiaries to living wills and donation instructions, but she has no idea what her mother wants, or fears, or has already planned for.

“Aging ain’t no joke,” she says, somewhat bleakly, and reaches for her water glass. “I’m glad neither of you are alone.”

“We’re glad you’re not alone,” Bradley returns. “I like your Reagan fella. I think he’s a keeper.”

“Me too,” Eddie says, “I mean it. You’re a good guy, Bradley. You’ve been nothing but great for my mom. I’m sorry I haven’t really been around much.”

“You’ve been busy saving the world.”

“From itself, most days, it seems like.”

“Potato, po-tah-to.”

She sits up and pushes her hair back, giving him a small smile. “So I guess I have a legal dependent now,” she says. “Or I will, as soon as he reaches a point where two doctors decide he’s not able to conduct his own affairs. Could be next year, ten years, or never. Funny, I sort of assumed it would be my own kid. Not my dad.”

“Happens that way sometimes. Knowing that Alzheimer’s runs in the family, I’ve had to talk to my own daughter about that a few times. Power of Attorney, financial access, living wills, all that. Again, Bipolar disorder’s a different beast, but the planning-ahead still applies. Especially if he’s been increasingly medicated and is about to be paroled after being heavily supervised for years.”

“He still thinks _I’m_ going to be the one supervising him and his new band of brothers. Or he thinks he can convince me to live nearby and drop in every day, if he just says he expects it of me often enough. After everything he’s done for me.”

“You poor kid,” her stepfather says, unexpectedly. “He’s pulling that level of crap on you?”

“I think it was always there. He was just always careful to hide the expectations under the doting-father routine. He thinks my being a cop is just a phase, me acting out to get his attention.”

“Is it?”

It takes her a second to realize Bradley’s pulling her leg a little. He’s always so steady, so reliable, that she forgets he has a dry humorous streak in him. She snacks him lightly on the arm as he grins.

“No! Not unless seeing me trying to be accountable and make up for some of our family crap makes him feel remorseful, and that’s on him, not me. Maybe his come-down was the kick in the ass I needed to get me to think about what I could do in the world, but the second I put on my Recruit grays and saw myself… It’s funny, with the kids I was raised with, the crowd I ran with in high school and college, I should’ve turned out way differently. I should’ve been into things that the NYPD wouldn’t have wanted anyone who had any part of it. The parties, the drugs, the country-club princess thing. But something always made me stay away from all that. I guess my big rebellion was the string of rocker boyfriends with fast motorbikes and no future in music. They were pretty hot, though, I gotta say. Way more interesting than prep school boys.”

Bradley laughs and gets up, taking his dinner plate to the dishwasher. Eddie follows with hers, and leans back against the counter as Bradley tells her, somewhat surprisingly, “You are more your mother’s daughter than Armin’s, no matter what he wants you to believe. I haven’t even met the man and I can tell you, he wanted you to be his perfect little girl, always. You get your toughness from your mother.”

“And her mother. I’m beginning to get that.”

“Well, that’s something to hold onto,” Bradley says. “What would your grandmother Marija do?”

“Huh. Something to ask Jelena or Bojan. They actually knew her.”

“You should. Coffee?”

“Yes, please. Then we should fire up Skype and see if the cousins are ready. I know Mom wanted to talk to them too, but I guess she’s sort of done.”

“Not completely done,” Mira’s voice sounds from the door. “I’m sorry, _draga_. Don’t think I don’t care. It’s all just…” she waves an elegant hand in the air.

“I know.” Eddie says. “It’s a bit much for me, too. But I’m dealing with it, Mama. And I’m not alone, I have help. The prison staff, his doctors. Jamie. I haven’t met his parole officer yet.”

“I don’t want my anger in your heart,” Mira says quietly. “I am sure you have more than enough feelings about your father to deal with. It would be good of you to write me all you have learned in an e-mail. That way I can come back to it when I am ready.”

“I thought of doing that. It just seemed kind of…distant.”

“I think distant is what I should remain, in regards to him, but I don’t want _you_ to feel you can’t talk to me about the difficult things. Is that coffee you’re making? I’ll have some, too. And of course I want to hear about your new work. I can tell you this: you picked up your acting skills from your father, not me. That’s something you can thank him for. He’s always been able to make people believe what he says, just like you. The difference is that you don’t use it for your own benefit. Only for other people. There is such honesty in you, such a need to see justice done. There always was. And compassion, _mali_. You go where I cannot. _T_ _ako sam ponosan na tebe._ ”

Is thirty-two a bit old to be touched so deeply by a parent’s pride? Eddie chokes up nonetheless. Proving herself and earning people’s respect seems to have been the theme of the week, from Henry and Frank to her new supervisors. Mira’s unasked-for vote of confidence hits home right where she needs it. Especially as her father is doing his level best to make her feel like she’s not measuring up to his expectations, and part of her desperately wants his regard, too. It’s just programmed into her.

Mira’s words put new energy in her spine, and she feels like she can manage her father, instead of continually feeling she has to fight against his mindgames. She wishes she had something to offer Mira in return, instead of news of an unwell ex-husband and increased worry over her daughter’s new line of work, which Eddie won’t be able to tell her much about. Mira is tough, yes, but it’s a toughness that is activated by being able to take action, and there’s nothing Mira can do about any of those things.

“ _Hvala_ , Mama.”

“Come, come.” Mira holds her arm out. Eddie willingly goes to her, and Mira hugs her to her side, pressing a kiss to her temple. She fleetingly wonders if she should grow out her roots and go back to her natural brunette again, but decides she’s still enjoying being a blonde too much for now.

Besides which, it gives her visual proof to remind her father that she’s not the little girl with the shiny dark ringlets anymore.

She’s sipping her coffee and firing up Skype on Mira’s laptop when her phone chirps.

_Hi from everyone here. We’re about to watch a Hitchcock. Let’s take Nicky out soon. I love you so damn much._

She smiles. Sounds like it’s been quite a night in Bay Ridge.

 _If there were only words enough_ , she types back.

 

* * * * *

(Musical Interlude and/or Soundtrack: “Bones”, Michael Kiwanuka.  
[Open in new tab](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6EiH1pzY1U) to listen along.)

 

She hasn’t worn this dress, the vintage embroidered little black mini with the sharp plunge, since the first time they went dancing. It’s lurked in the back of her closet in its dry-cleaning bag ever since then. She’d nearly had second thoughts about it tonight, not wanting to revisit awkward memories. Now she’s extremely glad she pulled it and her low black suede pumps out of hiding. Black lacy underthings, new pair of sheer stay-up stockings, hair in a mass of loose waves, good to go.

The outfit still works.

As in, stunned silent, open-mouthed gape, heavy-eyed _works_.

As she’d stepped out of her bathroom, hearing him call as he let himself into the apartment, she found herself gaping right back. He wore his deep indigo dress shirt opened a button lower than usual, with his best bespoke charcoal suit hanging perfectly around it. Instead of getting a haircut, he’d done something with the emerging curls in front that makes her fingertips ache. But it was the look in his eyes…

 

> _Honey, I've been thinkin' 'bout you  
>  All that you do.  
>  Don't you think of me, too?_

She sees that look again, as they ease into a turn at the edge of the dance floor, and pass by another couple who eyes them admiringly.

 

> _Lady, where you've been for so long?  
>  I don't mean you no wrong  
>  Had to write you this song. _

They’ve come back to Bix’ Basement Jazz and Supper Club for a Saturday night early Valentine’s dance and buffet-style endless appy dinner, this time without the matching black eyes. And this time there’s no nudging each other about anything they’re missing out on or giving up. Even at the most significant crossroads of their careers, and with their families both on the precipice of major changes, they are each other’s steady, fixed point.

 

> _Well, I long to be alone with you  
>  And if I couldn't have you, I don't know  
>  What I would do?_

He looks down at her, and finding her eyes already on him, he swallows hard. “You are amazing,” he tells her.

She slides her palm up over his chest. Whatever flippant return she had in mind fades away.

“I’m _lucky_ , is what I am,” she replies, as his hand covers hers. He looms over her a little, and she gets the tingles. Normally she resists being reminded of her short stature, and relishes her own independence, but tonight she feels encircled by him. Enfolded in his strength and solid warmth.

 

> _I guess I would leave, I would leave  
>  This world alone, world alone  
>  ‘Cause without you, I'm just bones._

 

She’s always known Jamie has a hidden edge, a darker energy running through him that he keeps locked down tight until some spark of righteous fury or a long-simmering frustration sets off an explosion. He’s the very soul of consideration with her, though Bossy Jamie sometimes comes out to play, to her intense delight. She knows she teases him hardest, at work or in bed, when he really needs to let off the brakes and vent some steam.

 

> _Well, I dream of you so much  
>  Love you so much, but  
>  Thoughts aren't enough._

 

Tonight, though, he’s radiating a primal possessiveness and quiet command that quickens her breath and sends the electric flutters right through her belly. She’s there with _him_ , she’s _his_ , and he wants people to know it. It doesn’t feel like weakness to let herself fall into the feeling. Giving him her complete trust feels like a hard-earned moment of indulgence.

 

> _Well, I speak only of you  
>  So what else is new?  
>  What am I to do?_

 

He brushes her mouth with his, with strict self-restraint, and moves them towards the center of the floor, still holding her hand against him.

“I think I’m the lucky one.”

She’d lean her head against his shoulder, but she doesn’t want to get makeup on his jacket. So she just ducks her head a little and leans in, wrapping her hand around the back of his neck, and his arms tighten around her.

 

> _Well, I long to be alone with you  
>  And if I couldn't have you, I don't know  
>  What I would do?_

 

Her body remembers exactly how it felt, the first time they danced here, and he pulled her closer. Darts of excitement were running here and there all through her, at his nearness, the latent strength of him, the scent of him, the way his own breathing slid all over the place as he tried not to look at her mouth or down at the curves of her breasts in her dress, and then gave up. She’d tried to keep things light and casual, giving him an out, especially in a public place like this. Even so, even after agreeing once again to not risk their partnership, they were a heartbeat away from racing home and fucking each other senseless. She'd had to send him on his way firmly at the end of the night, for her sake as much as his.

Somehow, even with their relationship deepened and flourishing, with all the mess of real life to deal with, it’s _even better_ tonight.

 

> _I guess I would leave, I would leave  
>  This world alone, world alone  
>  ‘Cause without you, I'm just bones._

 

She’s drifting away on the music, idly thinking that she should probably eat something soon, when Jamie’s hand slides down an inch towards her ass, and gives her a whole other set of ideas. She tilts her head up so she can murmur in his ear, and he obligingly leans down to listen.

“Tell me,” she says, “After we left here last time, what’d you do when you got home?”

His sharp inhale gives her a hint. She doesn’t leave him much time to answer, but goes on.

“ ‘Cause I remember exactly what I did,” she whispers. “I wanted you so bad I could barely stand up. You held me and touched me all night and then I had to go home alone. D’you have any idea the state I was in?”

His hand tightens on her hip and he presses her hand against his chest, so she can feel the thumping of his heart, as they keep dancing as though nothing untoward is going on.

“I didn’t even take off my dress when I got in,” she whispers, so only he can hear. “I just lay on the couch and slid my hand in my panties and I was so wet, Jamie, you wouldn’t believe it, just from thinking about you all night. I came in like two minutes, just imagining it was you.”

“Jesus, Eddie,” he breathes into her hair.

“After that,” she goes on, mercilessly, “You know what my favourite fantasy was? That you followed me home after all. I’d be on the couch getting off all by myself ‘cause you drove me crazy all night and I couldn’t wait. There’d be a knock on the door and I’d get up and you’d be standing there, and you’d just – ”

He makes the faintest sound, and she steers them around another couple with a cheerful nod.

“And I’d get up against the wall, and I’d fuck myself with my dil, you know, the glass one that makes me _fucking insane_ when you do me with it, and I’d imagine it was you – ”

“Eddie, fuck, please…” he begs.

She lets go of his neck and leans back, smiling serenely into his eyes. His are thunderous and dark, his pupils blown, his lids heavy.

“Tell me,” he murmurs challengingly, and her stomach flips, hard. “What you got on under here?”

But for a few inches, he’d be grabbing a handful of her ass outright, but he’s keeping his hands just within the bounds of propriety.

Her breath escapes her and she misses a step. “Ah…stay-up stockings. Black lace panties. The ones with the roses. You know them,” she murmurs back.

“Mm hmm.”

A couple of beats later, he leans down again.

“When this song’s over, go take off your panties. I’ll meet you by the dinner tables.”

His hands are tight on her hips and there’s a growl in his voice. She’s barely breathing at all. “Jamie…”

His eyes leave no room for dissent.

_Holy shit, Reagan._

Is he going to find some dark corridor of the old club's basement and fuck her right there? It's Jamie. He wouldn't, would he? He looks like he might. And he's not going to tell her. He's going to keep her wanting and waiting for it.

Somehow they dance through to the end of the song, and she’s getting wetter by the second, the more politely he holds her.

When the music fades, he kisses her fingertips and damn near bows before shoving her very gently in the direction of the washrooms. He gives her a grin and says aloud, “I’ll be over at the buffet, honey. Looks like a great spread. You want me to get you a drink?”

“No thanks, _dear_ , I just need some water,” she shoots back. “It’s sorta hot in here.”

Her purse is in the coat check, and the dress she’s wearing doesn’t have pockets. She’s standing in the stall, holding her panties in one hand and wondering what the hell to do with them, when she’s hit by the smell of her own arousal. A very mischievous grin creeps over her face.

She folds up the little lace panties as small as she can – they nearly disappear between her fingers, when she’s done – and makes sure her hand is angled towards her dress as she heads back to the dinner tables. She’s banking on the fact that people tend not to believe they’re seeing what they don’t want to, even if they looked twice and realized it isn’t a handkerchief she’s holding.

The look in his eyes heats her through as she walks towards him.

“Sweetie, could you hold onto this? I don’t want to have to get my purse out of the cloakroom,” she says, flipping open the front of his jacket. Deftly she slides her panties, folded flat, into the inner pocket, and then set him to rights again, patting his chest. “Thanks. You know, this is why I’m always going on about pockets!” she chatters on.

He clears his throat. “Sure. No problem,” he mutters.

She smiles and slides into the chair next to him.

“What’d you get us?” she asks, looking hungrily at the assortment of appetizers he’s collected.

Somehow they get through a round of appies and drinks – Dunhill’s for Jamie, and soda and a lime wedge for her, since she’s driving – and get back on to the dance floor unscathed. And now that the game is on, _it’s on_.

Her dress isn’t so short that she’s concerned about dancing with no panties on, especially with the stockings she’s got on, but if she can smell herself, then so might anyone nearby.

Oh, well. It was Jamie’s idea. He can deal with it. He's already got that look that makes her shiver a little inside.

“You wanna know what I did when I got home?” he murmurs, just under her ear, as they’re slow-dancing close and warm to a Marvin Gaye tune.

“Tell me,” she breathes, her nails scratching lightly into his nape.

“Same thing I did so many nights. Got in the shower, drove myself crazy thinking of you, the way you feel, the sound of your voice, the way you move – Jesus, Eddie, the way you smell all turned on…till I couldn’t stand it. It was always you, Eddie. Even just thinking what it was like to kiss you…”

“I know…”

“That time you came over…d’you have any idea how bad I wanted to kiss you for real…”

“Yeah,” she whispers. She knows, all right. He was on the very edge of diving back in and kissing her breathless, before she slowed them down. If she hadn’t, she knows, they would not have stopped until they drove each other to exhaustion.

“Just thinking of it would get me going.”

“If I hadn’t left…”

“Oh, now that was _my_ favourite fantasy.”

It was certainly the starting point for a whole lot of her fantasy-Jamie scenes, too. Breaking down that tight, proper resolve of his and riding him to a galloping sweaty finish on his own couch. Or Jamie taking control and fucking her to a screaming orgasm in his bed…

They get through two more songs, just barely managing to avoid becoming overly conspicuous, but they’re hardly alone among the amorous Valentine’s Day couples here tonight.

Then Eddie, heading back to the washroom, catches a glimpse of two women who either couldn’t wait or don’t care, in the last stall. They’re young and cute and so hot for each other, trying to keep quiet, but sharp gasps and groans keep filtering through. She supposes she should probably arrest them for public indecency, but hey, they’re not doing anyone any harm, and it’s an adults-only event, so…she shrugs, washing her hands, and calls out, “Happy Valentines!” as she leaves.

She tells Jamie all about it when she returns, and that’s when he finally grips her hand and says, “Let's get out of here.”

They’re safe in Silver Belle in under seven minutes, after retrieving their overcoats and thanking the gracious venue host for a lovely evening, and promising to be back soon.

She plots the quickest route to her place, and has a revelation at a red light. Her car is dark inside, and low, and…

Her hand slides across Jamie’s thigh and up the inside, and he jumps. “Hey!”

She stills her hand, and looks over at him, eyes alight. He gets it, then. His quiet moan is her answer.

She rubs her fingertips over his inseam impatiently as he unzips and conceals the view from the window side with his jacket. He’d been so intent on not letting himself get carried away in the club that he chokes out a sigh of relief now, and slides down a little in his seat. She runs her fingers up and around his heated length as he pulses and hardens under her touch, and he curses under his breath.

“Jesus, Reagan. After all you were doing to _me_ back there… I nearly had to take care of myself in the bathroom.”

“You didn’t?” he asks, his eyes drifting shut, though he doesn’t want to miss a second of this.

“No,” she says, “Not without you.”

“Eddie…” he groans, as her fingers play over him. Fuck, that’s an incredible sight: her good boy turned all bad, in that shirt that picks out the shape of the muscles beneath, his plush lower lip demanding a bite, his cock rising hard and proud into her hand, right there in her car. Just like he’s dreamed of.

“Don’t come,” she murmurs warningly, as she eases off the brake and speeds up smoothly, “Don’t come all over my car…”

“Aw, _fuck_ , Eddie…”

She’s never driven Silver Belle with no panties under her dress, and she finds herself scanning her mental map to see if there’s anywhere safe in this city to pull over and crawl over onto her passenger’s lap. The thought of riding Jamie just in her stockings is mind-foggingly hot. She doubts there’s anywhere safe between here and home, but she does tell Jamie how much she wants to.

He appreciates that.

Somehow they make it home more or less unscathed. Jamie manages to tuck himself back in for the brief flight upstairs. And then they’re inside, and her stomach wrenches with pleasure as his hard, devouring kiss takes her breath away. She lets out a sob as he ducks his head and his teeth sink into her arched throat, and his hands tug the hem of her dress up over her thighs.

“ _Fuck_ , Jamie, fuck me,” she hisses. He moans and lifts her clean off her feet, carrying her to the couch. He drops heavily onto it, bringing her with him, and she kicks off her shoes and lands astride his lap. She finds his mouth and seeks out his tongue, pushing his jacket over his shoulders. Once free of it, he unzips himself again as her busy fingers work on his belt buckle and then his shirt buttons, and _holy shit_ , he’s lifting her ass to tug her dress out of the way, and he’s growling down her throat as she takes him deep inside her and slides down flush against him. He looks like a dream, rumpled hair and damp skin, panting and ridden hard in his good suit. He’s _all hers_ , thoughts and body and breath and thick hard cock, and the feel of him against her stockinged legs and bare ass is sending her out of her head. He braces one arm around her hips and drives his fingers through her hair, and his demanding kiss matches the relentless tempo of his thrusts. Forget Bossy Jamie – this is the Jamie who wants and lusts and needs, and what he needs is _her_.

She buries her rising cries in his neck, and twists her hips down against him, over and over, and feels herself spiralling closer and closer to the edge of her undoing. She’s so close, and it’s almost too intense for her to come from it.  Then his harsh demand falls on her ear: “Come for me, come for me…” and she gasps and grinds down on his hard length and bites back a scream against his collarbone as the pleasure shudders through her.

He curses and takes her hard and ragged, her name escaping him in breathless pants as he finally lets go. She slumps against him, dazed, her arms looped around his neck, and he holds her tightly, catching his breath.

“God, Reagan,” she murmurs, “I love you like this.”

“You do, huh?”

She rubs her cheek along the once-crisp front of his shirt, “I love you always. But sex-mad Jamie, too turned on to think? Yes, please.”

He manages a chuckle, and nuzzles into her neck. “It’s you. I could never let go like that with anyone else.”

“And in public!” she teases, stroking the skin of his chest as it heaves with his breathing. He huffs a rueful laugh.

“We got lucky there.”

“Yes,” she kisses his cheek, “We did. And I guess this is the awkward aftermath. What d’you say we get out of these poor clothes and grab a shower?”

“I gotta say, for an awkward aftermath, you’re pretty cute,” he says. “But yes, let’s do that. And don’t worry – ” he slides a warm hand down and snaps the elastic garter of her stocking, “I bet you won’t even think about tonight _at all_ at family dinner tomorrow.”

 

* * * * *

_A/N: The Detours will be on brief hiatus while I am chugging through midterm essays. Fear not, there are many more adventures in store! Thank you SO MUCH for your lovely comments and encouragement. They really do mean the world. Be back with you as soon as possible!_


	15. Chapter 15

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Knowledge may be its own reward, but the journey there can be perilous.

Half a world away, Bojan whistles and shakes his head, impressed. “That is very much, how is it called – ” he looks to Jelena, beside him, for the English phrase.

“A shiner,” Jelena supplies. “Cousin Edit, what has happened?”

“I am meaning her beautiful smile,” Bojan grins through the monitor. “You are looking well, Edit, even with the...shine-er. Shiner? Is that truly how it is called?” he turns back to Jelena. “You are wanting me to look like an idiot, I think.”

Despite the pain in her mandibular joint and the blooming bruise around and underneath her right eye, just beginning to blacken from an angry, streaky purple-red, Eddie grins back.

Bojan is fast becoming the big brother she never knew she needed, continually provoking and teasing, tut-tutting over her and celebrating every small success with her. Eddie finds it personally hilarious that, small of stature as she is, that kind of caretaking treatment from the men in her life usually exasperates her and drives her on to ever-more ridiculous feats of independence. For Bojan she feels only a mutual affection and respect, for a fellow officer as well as a cousin. They get each other. It doesn’t hurt that they look like siblings.

Jelena, friendly and gracious like Mira, has become no less beloved to Eddie, but like most of the women in the family, she preserves a certain distance, always watchful, always on guard. Eddie takes after her father in her love of exuberant, warm human connection. But these days, Jelena is beginning to pick up some of Eddie’s Americanisms from their monthly Skype chats. She unfurls like a sunflower when her daughters come into the frame, all three heads of thick dark curls together, smiling shyly at the camera as they whisper questions their mother’s ear about their American cousin with the infectious laugh.

Today, however, there are only Jelena and Bojan, sitting together in Bojan’s sparse white and beige Belgrade apartment. Eddie is not sitting at her mother and Bradley’s kitchen table in Katonah, overlooking the magnolias while they all drift in and out of conversation and meal preparations between the two countries. Instead, she is sitting at her desk at home, while Jamie is at church. There are heavy family matters to discuss, once they’ve caught up a little.

“But what happened?” Jelena repeats, concerned. “I thought you were no longer working as regular officer?”

“Yes, that’s true. We were practicing an armlock escape exercise in weaponless combat training.” She demonstrates in slow motion, at least from the waist up. “I spun around when I should have just backed up a step. My sparring partner didn’t pull his fist fast enough. And he was right not to. I won’t forget again. Too much kickboxing in my muscle memory. But then I bounced up and nearly knocked out my partner, who was six foot four and a hundred pounds heavier. Nothing broken, no loose teeth, but never underestimate devious short women with angles of attack you don’t expect.”

“What is ‘devious’?” Bojan asks.

“Sneaky,” Eddie and Jelena answer in unison. Bojan shakes his head.

“Why is never there one English word for one thing? Never will I improve.”

“Don’t worry,” Eddie assures him, “You’d have no problem being understood here.”

“Speaking of trying to understand,” Jelena says quietly, and reaches for her coffee cup. The other two settle down instantly. Jelena pauses, gathering her thoughts.

“We have only questions so far,” Eddie urges her. “Even narrowing down the list of questions would be good.”

Jelena has taken it upon herself to be the family genealogist for their generation. She still visits her grandmother Jelizaveta – Eddie’s Protetka Lizzie – every couple of weeks, and has hounded Bojan to ask his grandfather Andreij for the family details he still remembers. Her fifteen-year long connection with the University of Belgrade, as a departmental administrator in the faculty of Biology, has also brought her a number of useful contacts across the departments. She’s served on a Health and Safety committee with a researcher in Wartime History, and is friendly with a couple of political and social science lecturers. She’s gained access to the National Archive of Serbia, using her university credentials, and has looked up a few old newspaper publications on microfiche.

Bojan has promised to find someone high enough in the police force to pull any potential cold case investigations off the shelves, if it comes to that. They hope it won’t. There is every reason to believe that if Baka Marija had a child as a teenager, that Eddie might have an aunt or uncle still living out there – and Bojan and Jelena another cousin.

It’s still a big _if_.

Bojan shifts in his seat a little. This is emotional territory he is not at all comfortable with. “I ask Deda Andreij how he is finding his sisters after the war,” he offers. “He said the sisters made a search for him and they learn he is living on cow farm, living like son of the family, and he is happy. So they were happy to find him and they write letters after that. They were together for _Badnji dan_ in some years. Your Christmas.”

“That’s right. And I asked Baka Lizzie if she would tell me everything she remembered,” Jelena begins, her wedding ring flashing as she rubs her chin fretfully. “I am afraid I…spoke untruthfully to her. I made her think she had already told me more than she did, many years ago, and I was naturally curious to know more. I asked her ‘What _else_ made you think Protetka Marija might have had a child during the war?’ It took her a little while, but you know when age comes upon one, it is the memories of earlier times that appear the most clearly. She began talking in pictures.”

Jelena takes a breath. Eddie pulls her Moleskine towards her and prepares to take notes.

“Baka Lizzie, you see, had been living with a Muslim family since she was twelve, working as a maid and watching their small children. It was an act of charity that they took her in. Only Muslim and Catholic families were considered acceptable. You know Lizzie and Andy were the only other two children to survive the Croatian Revolutionary Movement. The oldest girl and the three little ones did not. When the war was over, and Marija tried to find her family again, Lizzie’s host family found out, and sent her to live at the Displaced Children’s Home too. We cannot blame them; they had done their best to shelter her with no obligation to do so, and they could do no more. So Lizzie and Marija lived in the same dormitory with the other older girls for two years.”

“I’m glad they found each other so quickly, at least.” Eddie says, her heart in her throat.

“Me, too,” Jelena nods. “Now, Lizzie told me how one morning she woke up as Marija was getting dressed beside her. The morning sun shone upon Marija as her arms were lifted, so – ” Jelena raises her own arms, twisting side to side slightly, miming letting a dress fall over her head. “Lizzie saw scars she did not understand, on Marija stomach. Like a spiderweb of dark lines, going up and down, she said.”

“Stretch marks?” asks Eddie.

Jelena shrugs one shoulder, in a very Eastern European gesture of _you’re right on the money, but let’s not put anything in words._

“It may be so. Lizzie asked her what the marks were. Marija told her they were from being so hungry that her stomach fell in upon itself and the skin hung in folds, until she ate well again in the Home. Which may be so. But Marija was a notable hunter and gardener, living in the country for two years. She probably ate better there then in Prijedor. Also remember stomachs _swell up_ due to starvation oedema, except in the final extremis near death. And then…Bojan, excuse me. Lizzie explained that Marija’s breasts were not those of a child. It was whispered among the girls, especially since Marija was careful not to let them be seen when she bathed. She may have just been self-conscious and modest, but…” Jelena shrugs again, palm raised. “This may all be the gossip of teenage girls taking out their trauma on each other. Except for one more story.”

Eddie, who has been nodding along and scribbling notes and possible timelines, looks up.

“Cousin Edit, did your mother ever have you speak to your Baka on the phone, or write letters, or anything like that?”

Eddie feels a clench in her belly. This is something she still doesn’t know how to ask her mother about.

“Never. I actually didn’t realize Baka Marija was still alive until Mama told me when she died, in 2008. I mean, I was named after her, so it never struck me that there might have been any family estrangement or anything. I assumed she must have died young. And you don’t ask my mother questions when she uses the kind of voice she did.”

“Remote,” Jelena puts in. “Half-dead, perhaps.”

“That’s…it,” Eddie says, somewhat stunned. “That’s exactly it. Way past sadness. And not, like, anything she was angry about. Just – an absence of feeling.”

“ _Da_. Lizzie said that she noticed that when infants were brought into the Children’s Home, Marija would act as if they did not exist. Marija, who had mothered her own brothers and sisters, and protected them, would not speak to any child who still looked and acted like a baby. And when she was forced to speak to them, she did so in just that kind of voice.”

Eddie has a sudden flashback to the dream-baby she carried in a vividly lucid nightmare of looking for a warm and safe place to steal a moment’s rest. The baby’s voice came out as a sort of gray ghostly mist instead. The fine hairs on the back of Eddie’s neck stand up at the very thought.

“She was never cruel, and would not neglect her duties, but she made it very clear that she did not want anything to do with the babies. Later, when your mother, Mira, was born in Prijedor, it was Lizzie who held her, rocked her to sleep. She told me that Marija fed the baby at her breast, but that was all. She left its care to Lizzie and your Deda, until it was walking and talking. Then after that, all through Mira’s childhood, Marija seemed to smother the child with love in one moment, and ignore it in another.”

That, Eddie thinks, would explain a great deal of her mother’s reactions and emotional makeup. Including why Mira left home and ran halfway across the world at eighteen. And it also reframes some of Eddie’s earliest memories, of Mira wanting her to behave more like a quiet little dress-up doll than a normal rambunctious human child. And it partly explains Eddie’s own lack of baby experience – she was never encouraged to babysit, or even play with neighbour babies.

And yet her mother gave her Marija’s name for her middle name, but in the English form. There are layers here she doesn’t understand, and may never be able to ask her mother.

“Can you hear more?” Jelena asks kindly. Eddie nods.

“Whatever you’ve found, we need to know.”

Jelena carefully smooths a sheaf of paper printouts on the table in front of her. “Do you read Cyrillic?” she goes on.

Eddie shakes her head. “No, only Serbian written in Western _gajica_. I could maybe spell out the Cyrillic if I had enough time, but…”

“Never mind, I shall translate and send this to you. It’s a news clipping from _Seljačka Borba_ , a weekly paper that was published for only a few years after the war. The article is from 1946. It regards the troubles of children who were lost to the war – children who died, and children who were left without parents. Allow me to read to you.” She lifts the paper and translates the enlarged printout of scratchy, faded newspaper type as she reads:

“Infant Asylums in the countryside outside of urban centers are overflowing with unwanted children. All of them innocent save for the Original Sin of the True Believer, many of the children are the offspring of _Ustaše_ soldiers and their stolen wives. Some are orphans. Most have been abandoned like stray dog litters by parents who were barely more than children themselves, forced to marry by the _Ustaše_ and encouraged to raise large families to populate the land with Roman Catholic fascists.”

Jelena looks over the top of the paper. “Cousin Edit, I hope this is not too troubling for you. I know that your Jamie is also Catholic.”

Eddie shakes her head. “Not like that. And I don’t think the _Ustaše_ were Catholic in anything but name and ritual anyway.”

Jelena nods. “I will continue.”

“Many little mothers, who were not married in a church, were unable to return home with a bastard child in arms. Their towns would not accept them, and they would find no work and no true husband. With no other means of livelihood, many were forced to abandon their children after the war, or they would be forced to become beggars or take up the degrading work of common street women. We may pity in our hearts the young mothers who left their children, especially those without a husband to protect them, but we must not assist them in compounding their great sin. Motherhood is a sacred obligation, no matter the child’s origin. A mother should die before abandoning her child, or what is she?”

Eddie and Jelena share a look, at this, and Bojan grunts disapprovingly.

“The country Asylums are not the safe, clean state-run orphanages that we were once used to before the war. They are now overcrowded, dirty and filled with disease. Sick babies receive no care. Those that live until school-age may, if they are lucky, find a private benefactor to maintain them through primary school, but our investigation finds that most do not live past their third year. The average cottage Asylum has room for twenty infants, and yet their records show forty or fifty enrolled and receiving state funding. We only count ten or fifteen underfed, unwashed infants in evidence when we visit. We are told the others must be out playing. When we ask, “Who is watching so many two and three year olds at play?” we are only told, “Some local girl we hired.” Most troubling to our writers, however, are the many small mass grave-hills in the forests and meadows not far from the Asylums, where the missing and dead children are laid to rest without proper rites or any token of remembrance. They are beyond number and unrecorded. We cannot even pray for them by name.”

“There are some records, then,” Bojan says thickly, “Even if they are not…whole, or right. Correct? I mean to say correct. People may give any story they wish, at such times.”

“Some records, yes,” Jelena says. “But there were over three hundred known asylums in Serbia after the war, and how many more underground?”

“We can start with Prijedor,” Eddie says. “And with Prodaidža Andy and Protetka Lizzie. Even if they remember whereabouts in the countryside Marija was sent with the _Ustaše_ boy, that would help.” She chews her lip in thought. “Mama thought the boy was sent to Canada or England after the war. You don’t think they’d have let him take a baby with him?”

“I doubt it so,” Jelena replies. “He was only sixteen or seventeen himself. If he was sent away as an exile, it was to work in the forests or on a farm. Not to raise a child.”

Eddie taps her pen against her chin and looks down at the timeline she’s scribbled in her notebook. She flashes back to her mother’s words. _War twists people, little one. We do things to keep ourselves and our families alive that we can’t imagine ourselves doing otherwise._

“If the dates that my mother suggested are anything to go by, Baka Marija was unofficially married at fourteen, in 1942, and was liberated and lived in the Home from sometime in 1944. So if there really was a child abandoned, it would be aged newborn to about one and a half years old in 1944, but probably no older than a year.”

“Yes, that was my thinking also. Plus, the child would have been old enough for Marija to recover from childbirth and cease lactating, or the children’s home would have suspected and investigated her story. It is interesting they overlooked the physical signs that Lizzie speaks of. I wonder if Marija had a medical exam when she was enrolled. She must have done. The Home was run by Americans and English, and they have a mania for such things.”

“That’s true,” Eddie tilts her head to the side. “More paperwork that might still exist somewhere. But if there were as many lost children as that – wouldn’t you think someone might guess the truth and not ask too many questions, for the sake of a teenage girl with absolutely nowhere else to go but the street?”

“Possibly,” Jelena agrees, “Especially since the Children’s Homes, too, received money per child from the Allies. They would need a good reason to turn a child away, and as Bojan says, Marija could tell them any story she liked.”

There’s a small, shell-shocked silence between the cousins, as they absorb all of this. Eddie remembers she’s only known them for two and a half months, and shakes her head in amazement. They’re drawn together in this search, yes, but she knows them on a far deeper level than that.

“So,” Bojan sits forward, having been listening intently all the while. “What do we do now?”

“Eddie, you should try to come here to us in the summer,” Jelena says. “You as a visiting American will be able to ask questions and ask to see places that we could not, without attracting too much attention. You will only need to say you are researching your family history, like everyone else coming to the old country. Maybe by then we will have more documents that we can look up.”

“I want to try,” Eddie assures them. “Jamie wants to come too. We were thinking we’d visit some of his family in Ireland on the way home.”

“That is good. We need more police officers here. You come, and we will make you special constables,” Bojan grins, trying to lighten the mood somewhat.

That reminds Eddie that she has an upcoming visit with her father, and she takes the opportunity to change the subject, explaining her father’s long-hidden bipolar disorder symptoms and persistent flights of fancy.

Surprisingly, Bojan counsels her to go easy on Armin. “Nobody is wanting to cheat and steal when they are baby,” he reminds her. “These are…picked up after bad times in life.” With his experience with Eastern European organized crime, he explains in stilted English mixed with rapid-fire Serbian that someone in the Hungarian or Russian _mafiya_ community in New York might be the real culprit. Someone may well have targeted Armin for his financial skills, and his need to provide for his family, and talked him into the first steps of a money-making scheme.

“I do not know if I have the correct English for this, but I will try. Here, the _mafiya_ wants to bring two kinds of men into their gangs. First, there are men with no heart and soul, who only want power and money for their own. The ‘heavies’, I think you call them. And then there are men who care too much, who love, and want to take care of the people they love. They have good hearts. The _mafiya_ always wants to get those men, because they are easy to use and easy to break. I think your father is one of these men.”

“I think you’re right,” Eddie replies. “His heart’s still in the right place. But his mind is wandering, after so long on heavy medication.”

They talk a little longer, trying to steer into shallower, warmer waters before signing off. Jelena promises to send a video clip of daughters singing an English song at a school concert, and Bojan repeats his usual half-serious offer of a job in the Serbian national police force. They say their farewells with competitive requests to have her and Jamie stay with either of them in the summer.

And then, after all of this has gone down, it’s time for Eddie to decide whether to join Jamie at the Reagan house after church, or not.

Sunday lunch with the gang sounds very sane and comforting, but she’s tempted to stay home. She has a lot to think about, and unlike Jamie, she hasn’t had a lifetime of processing internally while maintaining breezy conversation with a pack of trained investigators. Besides which, her face really does look more dramatic than she’d like. The amount of concealer she’d need to cover up the bruise would only end up looking like she’d poured a bottle of makeup over a black eye, and make her break out underneath.

She pulls herself up and stretches, and goes to stare at herself in the bathroom mirror. The Reagans are a police and soldiering family. She comes from a police and soldiering family, too, as it turns out. Learning to fight the good fight a little better each day is just what they _do_ , and they could not do it without the scars along the way. And not without each other. Maybe it’s okay to show the Reagans that sometimes she needs to lean hard on Jamie’s love and support. If anyone understands, it’s them.

But then, maybe they don’t. There haven’t been any female cops or soldiers among the Reagans. At least, not on the front lines. The women seem to have redirected their energies towards policing the Reagans themselves, or working to serve and protect in other ways.

It’s not a new thought, but it hits her all over again that she is the first female cop who is a regular at the Reagan table. That’s really why Nicky’s still so fannish, she knows. It’s not that Eddie’s anything wildly special as a person or a cop, but she’s a real-life example of someone doing her best at both, that Nicky can claim as part of her family lineage. Or will, soon enough.

Nicky always does make her glow a little. Someday she really must tell her that she makes a great little sister.

She throws herself a pointed look and starts brushing out her hair. Training injuries and family stress are just part of being a cop, too, and there’s no point in covering them up.

* * * * *

“Well – now that you know what went wrong, can you show me that move?” Nicky asks, eyes huge and casserole forgotten. Vegetarian, this being Lent season, and nothing sweetened for dessert. Fresh fruit is as decadent as it gets, especially on Sundays.

Nicky’s been training hard, building up to three different fight or fitness classes per week, plus running and swimming on campus after class. Jamie’s impressed and amused. Erin’s dainty daughter takes after her in so many ways. Nicky’s never been a scrapper, but that may have more to do with her birth order among the cousins. Like Erin, Nicky was always told to set a good example for the younger boys, and like most girls, her behaviour was pruned more strictly than theirs as they grew up. But given the opportunity and a good reason, she holds nothing back, and has little patience with those who seem to expect her to do so.

Erin’s greeting to Eddie today, after all, had been: “Another merit badge, I see. Are you on painkillers?” before handing her a glass of wine.

Jamie’s also secretly relieved that Nicky’s request has turned into a chat about fitness training in general. Truth be told, the combat training he and Eddie are undergoing these days is kicking them both in the ass. It’s just a fluke that his bruises are covered up. He thought he might have cracked a rib last week, but it’s just a nasty purple splotch on his side now.

He’s been boxing since he was a kid, and he and Eddie have both been trained to fight well. But they’ve also had integrity and discipline built into their lessons. The techniques they are learning now are filthy, underhanded, and meant to buy them an extra couple of seconds to escape a killing blow, or just send a 911 beacon if that’s all they can do. Not the sort of stuff either of them wants to talk about at dinner. Eddie even asked him, half-joking, if she should just make up a story about landing on her face in training instead. They decided to be brief, but honest. Combat training injuries happen. It’s how you get up off the mat that counts. And the kids have taken the lesson to heart.

“Let’s go outside after lunch and you can teach us stuff!” Sean suggests.

Eddie groans quietly, ducking so her hair covers her face, and Jamie laughs and rubs her lower back. “How about you let her recover first, buddy?”

“I’ve been headache-free so far and I want to stay that way,” Eddie begs off. “But sure, when I’m at one hundred again, or closer to it.”

“Oh, fine. Next week maybe. Hey, did you know Dad and I are going to visit Valley Forge again soon? I’m gonna spend a couple of nights in the dorms and do a bunch more interviews. And a football tryout! With the actual team!”

“Turns out this one might be payin’ most of his own way through military school,” Danny tells them all, a broad grin spreading across his face as he claps Sean on the shoulder. “There’s tuition perks for sons and grandsons of military vets, out-of-state boarders, _and_ sons of active service members and law enforcement. And if you can believe it, this little sneak has been getting extra Math and Science tutoring without telling me, since, like, _the beginning of school_ this year. He’s dragged his grades up high enough to compete for a football scholarship.”

“So it’s not actually _me_ paying my way, except if I get a scholarship,” Sean points out. “It’s you and Grandpa still, only you didn’t know that’s what you were paying for.”

There is a general hubbub, and Frank raises his wineglass. “Well said!” he says. “And that’s the sort of sneakiness I think we can all approve of. What sort of interviews do you have to get through?”

“I’ve got to meet with one of the Vice Principals, the school counsellor, do a physical with the school doctor before the tryout, then the tryout. I’m supposed to go to the same kinds of classes I’m taking now, and then I have to write a quiz or talk to the teachers after so they can see what I picked up. And hopefully get to know a few of the kids. Even if I don’t get the football scholarship, I might still make the team, but it’ll mean more tuition.”

“And while all that’s going on, I’m gonna be wrecking my hand filling out information and financial forms and hoping I’ve got copies of every single piece of paper they might ask for.”

“You got the scan of my discharge papers I sent over?” Frank asks.

“I did. Thanks for that. It’s crazy, but if everything works out the way it looks like, the real expenses are gonna be road trips and uniform and sports gear. We’re thinking of a weekend home every month, outside of game season. It sounds like that’s pretty common for boys who live close enough to home.”

“And that’ll only cost about the same as all the food you shovel in at home,” Jack can’t help needling. Sean merely grins and chomps down on a forkful of salad for dramatic effect.

Jamie watches a couple of bursts of subtext between Danny and Frank, during this exchange, and smiles to himself. Frank, and probably Pop, have apparently offered to step in with a bit of funding assistance of their own, if it comes down to it. Danny, being Danny, is proud enough not to want to take it, but also smart enough to realize that it’s a family investment in his son – and he’s extra proud of being able to hint to the old man, with all respect, that they might not need any help at all, thank you very much.

He sends up a hard little prayer for Danny and Sean that the funding package comes through, and that Danny doesn’t need anyone else’s help. Danny hasn’t looked this young and interested in anything for years. It’s not as if he’s trying to re-live his own military experience, either. He’s just super relieved that something is working out, for once. And he’s rightfully excited that his younger son, the one who was always in everyone else’s shadow unless he was acting up, is following in his old man’s footsteps.

Jamie glances up at Jack, who seems to be following in his uncle’s footsteps instead. He’s been working on Ivy League college applications as well as to local schools. If he gets a full ride including residence, he’ll take it. Otherwise, he’ll stay close to home and save the money, and try for an Ivy League grad program after college. He hasn’t written off the NYPD, either, but, like Jamie, he wants to make sure his brains get a fair chance beforehand.

Jack himself is beaming ear to ear. He and Sean have always known they were very different, but hopefully now they can support each other deepening into those differences, not competing or arguing over whose path is the better one

Linda would be so damn proud of them all, Jamie thinks.

He’s struck by a thought. “Jack, hey, eighteen next month. Got anything planned?”

“Oh, uh…sort of. Not quite solid, but I think I might be getting taken out by a few friends.”

“A few friends meaning Tasha?” Nicky flutters her eyelashes. Cop prospect or not, she still can’t resist a romance, or poking her cousin.

“Tasha and a couple others, yeah,” Jack replies, so easily that Nicky’s stopped in her tracks. “Probably dinner and a movie, or a concert or something. _Infinity War_ comes out the week after, so we might just wait for that.”

It appears as though either Jack or Tasha made a direct move. Jamie’s inward smile deepens. He suspects Tasha finally grabbed Jack and planted one on him. The youngest Reagans are having a very good year so far.

“Tasha’s a Marvel fan?” Henry asks, saving Jack from being grilled for details. Henry’s been a diehard fanatic since the very first Human Torch comic came out when he was eight years old, especially given the importance of New York City to the whole series. He even credits the early Superheroes for at least some of his decision to join the NYPD – but none more than The Human Torch, who actually worked as an NYPD officer to cover his identity.

“Oh, totally…” Jack rolls his eyes. “It’s like they’re her extended family. Especially – of course – Natasha.”

“The Black Widow? You might want to watch out there, Jack…and pass those green beans, please.”

“Nah,” Sean pipes up, “Banner can take care of himself.” He points to his head and throws his brother a significant look. Seven PhD’s and a tendency to hulk out when pushed beyond his limits is a bit close to the bone, Jamie thinks, but he can see Sean’s point.

“Shut up,” Jack grumbles good-naturedly at his brother, “I guess you think you’re all Captain America now?”

“Oh, can you _believe_ what they did with those two?” Eddie chirps, still outraged. “Implausible at best, and they had such a great connection without all the other…stuff.”

 “Yeah, but at least in _Thor_ , they made a whole running joke of it,” Erin reminds Eddie.

The conversation devolves comfortably. The Marvel Universe makes for great debate material in this family.

After lunch, Frank waves him and Eddie in to the library, for one of their regular debriefings in private. The family has absorbed this new habit, which they’ve described as “just some feedback on their new roles at work”. Despite that, people still tend to tap on the door and poke their noses in, claiming to be looking for something or asking if anyone wants tea or coffee. Danny and Erin are the worst offenders, though to their credit, they haven’t outright demanded to know if there’s something going on.

The very first thing he and Eddie do, then, is add their weekly handwritten journals to the pile growing in the wall safe. The bookcases, which look like they’re anchored to the ceiling for safety, slide apart along a track, helped by Teflon feet underneath. They’re heavy, but easy to start moving with a good shove. While Frank is entering the first of two combinations on the safe’s keypad, Jamie pours them all a reasonable amount of whiskey for three o’clock in the afternoon, and checks in on Eddie with a question in his eyes.

She smiles, clearly tired, but still glad she came. He nods back and passes her a glass. She takes it and comes to lean her head against his shoulder. He’s a little surprised, as she’s not usually so demonstrative here, but he’s certainly happy to meet her halfway. He brings her in for a squeeze and a kiss on her crown.

“We’re good to go anytime, you know,” he murmurs. Eddie nods, pulling her spine a bit straighter. Jamie keeps his arm around her shoulders as they settle on the couch.

“So,” Frank begins, sliding the bookcases back into place. “How’s the last week been? Pretty rough, by the look of you. I can tell you’re favoring your ribs, too, Jamie. Breathing okay?”

“Breathing okay,” Jamie confirms. “They’ve got us doing some takedowns and escapes that’d get us written up on the street, though. Nasty stuff. When they say you can break a rib with a single elbow punch, they mean it.”

“But useful,” Frank acknowledges. He sits in his chair and leans forward to pick up his whiskey. “Who are your combat trainers?”

“Boucher’s leading our weaponless combat training,” Jamie begins, “There’s a couple of younger guys we think were recruited from gangs, acting as one-on-one coaches and sparring partners. They seem to look to Boucher for directions, so they’re either his CI’s, or someone’s he trusts, which is a pretty small circle, I’m guessing. About eight of us in the class in total.”

“Who else?”

“There’s Boucher, the two kids,” Eddie ticks off on her fingers, “Jamie and me, that’s five. Then Leroy, who I think was posted at the two-four. Then Flavia – she’s the only other woman besides me – and Geoff. Flavia’s from a Staten Island house, but I’m not sure which one. Geoff is from the nine-five. Sometimes a few more join us for conditioning in the gym, but not fight class. I get the feeling they’re actually already working in the field, and just come back to work out now and then when they can. They keep to themselves.”

“Think they know each other?”

“Hard to say. They seem to recognize each other, but that’s about it.”

Frank nods. “Is Vance still leading classroom work?”

“Yup,” Jamie confirms. “There’s about twelve of us in morning lectures. Still covering a lot of gang history, their infiltration into local business and politics, where they get their money. Next week we’re getting into the broader political stuff – which police and government agencies and organizations are responsible for what, and how they’re supposed to work together.”

“ _Supposed to_ being the operative words,” Frank says. “You’ll hear my name a few times. And you’ll be watched for your response.”

“No doubt. I gotta say, Dad, there’s one guy Boucher and Vance are friendly with, Sergeant Pascal, who made it clear he wasn’t a fan of you. Not sure on what basis.”

“Don’t know him,” Frank shakes his head. “But maybe I should get Baker to do a quick look-see.”

“Wouldn’t hurt. I mean, I know you don’t get to your office by forming consensus at every step, and some people are going to disagree or just plain not like their Commissioner, but Boucher pretty much hinted that Sergeant Pascal stopped by just to look me over, and then left. He’s put his head into the gym now and then, but never sticks around.”

“Trying to psych you out?”

“No, not a bit. It may be that Boucher was totally on the level, that Pascal just came by to help role-play the hot-scene intro they put us through. But he made a bit of a production about you before he left. Boucher told me he wouldn’t be any bother. Maybe that’s the end of it, I don’t know. Right now I’m just mentally looking over my shoulder at every little thing. Even the people at the coffee shop across the street and the office clerks who get there the same time as we do. We’ve stopped driving in. Our cars stand out too much. We take different trains in now and leave a few minutes apart. Are we totally paranoid?”

“No. Good. Keep doing that. You might learn more about why certain groups aren’t my biggest fans in next week’s lectures. I’m curious to see how they cover all the internal politics, the different police unions and fraternities – see if the Blue Templar even comes in for a mention. It was supposed to be an honor society back in the day, after all. An example of positive culture change from within.

“You can bet we’ll be watching to see who’s paying close attention to _me_ if they do,” Jamie says. “If there’s any Templar among our instructors, or any of our classmates, they’ll know for damn sure that I already know what the Templar turned into. That’s the gang that killed my brother, and they know I know it and that you know it too. So if I don’t react at all, they’ll know I’m covering up my reaction. But if I do react, and there’s no Templar there to see it…then gosh, I’m just a guy who twitched out a bit at hearing about police corruption, I guess?”

Frank grimaces. “I don’t envy you. I sort of wish I could be a fly on the wall.”

Jamie thinks of the bird-drone cameras he and Eddie encountered at the Delamont compound during The Jam, and files that away for future consideration. Delamont said he’d be happy to repay a favor in kind one day…

“Guess we’ll just play that by ear if-and-when,” he says. He’s already thinking of how easy it would be to send up cameras and mikes to high up offices, as long as they’re not electronically shielded. And if they are, that would be something to look into. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence…sometimes the gaps show where the evidence is hiding.

As much as he enjoys working on the street, he’s beginning to hope that he’s assigned to an intelligence detail, so he can access more data immediately, and work in a single environment he can monitor for subtle day-to-day changes.

“What’s your gut tell you, Eddie?” Frank asks her next. “Has anyone seemed at all like they’re hiding in plain sight, or something just doesn’t strike you as being on the level? Same person walk past you in the hall too often for coincidence? Anyone asked you anything about your motivations or plans?”

She takes a sip of her drink and looks back over the last couple of weeks. “No, I think as far as anyone’s reaction to us shows, we’re just a couple of cops who showed an aptitude for undercover and got lucky, being put into training together. There’s always going to be questions whenever a Reagan seems to get a break, but I mean, why _wouldn’t_ a Reagan show talent, being raised in the job? And why wouldn’t the NYPD make use of it?”

“That’s certainly the simplest and most accurate explanation. And yes, there are always going to be those who don’t believe it, and look for ulterior motives in everything.”

“You think those are the people we should be keeping an eye on, then?” Eddie asks, “Anyone who questions how we got there? It stands to reason they might be the ones who’d be susceptible to being recruited by an _actual_ conspiracy within the organization.”

“Perhaps. But don’t discount the ones who seem supportive and want to help you, too.”

“Basically, everyone,” Eddie rolls her eyes with a small laugh. “If _we’re_ looking for deeper information while we’re going through training, we might as well suspect that _everyone_ is.”

“Basically, yes.” Frank’s eyes crinkle at her, and he takes a sip of whiskey. “How are you both holding up? Truly. I can see it’s been a rough week.”

Frank is watching Eddie as he speaks. Jamie feels Eddie sort of melt deeper into his side in relief. That’s interesting. She usually bounces up and insists she’s fine. But perhaps that’s a stronger reflex when it involves her job, something that’s so deeply intrinsic to her self-image that she doesn’t easily separate the two. Maybe she needs to change the subject off of work for a while?

“It has been, but today it’s more to do with family stuff,” Eddie explains. “My cousin Jelena gave us a whole lot of information this morning that could really open up a hornet’s nest. We – you see, we don’t know if there’s a missing relative out there. Someone that was born in the 1940’s, who was given up. Or abandoned, or even died as a baby. We don’t know. We’ve only got hints, and you know what wartime records are like. And even though it’s been so long – you never really know. If this person still exists, or their children, they might not want to hear about their own history.”

Ohh. That makes more sense. She only had time to give him a brief update on the latest conversation with her cousins. That’s what was weighing on her through dinner. Not being in physical pain.

Frank nods slowly, taking this in. If this person existed and is still alive, they’d be a little older than he is now. “Are you asking for advice?”

“I – I think so. Yes. I’ve never had a large family to deal with. This is all new. I mean, I already feel like my cousins and I are invested in each other. We’re not about to go our separate ways just because we disagree, or get spooked, but we’re just coming back together after, like, seventy years and three generations since the war. It’s one thing to have news that only impacts you and your parents, maybe. But this could affect a lot of people.”

“Well,” Frank says, in a very different voice than the one he uses as Commissioner, “You’re probably aware of Ireland’s church-influenced politics. And that many children and infants are unaccounted for there as well. It’s no great surprise to hear revelations from older relatives about being forced to give up babies, or passing down family whispers about past generations. They’re still unearthing records of unwed mothers’ homes every year. Mass graves, too. I have to assume there are a few Reagans with stories like that.”

This, while no doubt true, is the first Jamie’s heard his father talk about it. By now, everyone knows about the cruelty of the girls’ homes and convent-run reform schools in Ireland, the paperless adoptions and the fields of unmarked mass graves of infants, barely baptized and certainly not christened into the community. “You ever hear anything?” he asks.

Frank shakes his head. “No, not even a hint. My point is, it’s not just your family. And I don’t think anyone in _this_ family would be anything but pleased to find a missing cousin, whatever the circumstances.”

“We talked about the mass graves, too,” Eddie says. She reaches for Jamie’s hand, and he takes it in both of his, on his knee. “I mean, this is all fresh. I think I’m only feeling it now. I just heard about them this morning. And it sounds awful, but I have to wonder if it wouldn’t have been better for a baby in the middle of a war, with little to no chance of even making three years old…and with a whole country trying to pretend you didn’t exist, telling you you should never have born, because of your father…maybe mercy is best when that’s the alternative.”

Jamie strokes his thumb over the back of his hand. Grief is rolling off her in waves, as if she’s speaking of a child she knew and loved. That’s Eddie all over. A crusader and defender of all those who need defending, babies and desperate mothers included.

“Perhaps,” Frank replies. “I can understand not wanting someone to have to grow up with neglect and intolerable cruelty. But don’t forget life has ways of surprising us, too. Life wants to live. Whoever this person is, if they’re anything as tough as you, they might have come through all right.”

“But what if they only existed because of something awful?” Eddie blurts out, stiffening all over. “You know how the Nazis tried to get ‘ideal specimens’ to have children? Or – or girls being forced into being ‘comfort women’ to soldiers? If we’re right, then it’s like both of those at once. Rape by the state. If that’s how you were born, would you even want to know? Even if we find that’s true, how could we go about telling someone that – or their kids?”

“Yes, I see,” Frank says, thoughtfully. “Eddie, you know we all love and respect you very much. So if I ask you a hard question, can you take in that light?”

Eddie nods, still tense.

“When you first learned about your father’s activities, what was the most difficult part?”

Eddie answers instantly, “Feeling responsible.”

“Even though you couldn’t have been, in any way, shape or form?”

“Except being part of the perfect, successful family picture he used to draw people in.”

“Which you had nothing to do with, except behaving as you were told to, as a child.”

Eddie nods, a little reluctantly. She knows it, even if she doesn’t always feel it.

“So then let me ask you this. You were already grown up when you found out about your dad. I can only imagine how much of a shock it must’ve been. D’you think you’d have been better off never knowing, you and your mother?”

“I – you know, I used to feel like that. It was way worse for my mother. She really did feel responsible, and she still thinks she should have figured it all out and done something. But anything else would have been worse. Either Dad continuing on as he was, or just disappearing somehow so we never knew what happened to him.”

“I think what you’re looking for is somewhere close to that,” Frank suggests. “I can’t be sure, I’m not you. But I think, if you’re trying to figure out whether it’s best to keep information like that to yourself or not, that’s a place to start. Knowing something lets you get a handle on it, whether you choose to reject it or not. Not knowing keeps eating at you.”

“Yeah.” Eddie sighs and smiles wryly at Frank, and then leans her forehead on Jamie’s shoulder for a moment. She returns the squeeze of his hand and sits up. “Thanks. I think I just – I’ve been sitting on this all day, and this is the first chance I’ve had to talk about it.”

“Thank you for trusting me,” Frank returns.

She hadn’t needed a dad to talk to, so much as a priest, Jamie thinks, or at least someone like the priests he knows. Someone who not only has a broad and compassionate experience of humanity but has earned her trust enough to ask personal, probing questions, and not necessarily from a therapeutic point of view but a philosophical one. He may or may not bring that up with her later, but definitely not tonight. It may be best to let them both exhaust themselves at work for a while longer before coming back to family matters.

They’re finishing their whiskey in shared quietude when Danny raps on the door.

“Hey! Anyone alive in there want coffee? Erin’s making some.”

“Yes, please, and you can come in!” Frank calls back. The door opens a crack and Danny pokes his head through.

“You guys finish your coven meeting or whatever in here?”

“Just needed to unload,” Eddie says quickly, drawing attention away from the others. It works, too. Danny flashes her a look of brotherly appraisal and smirks.

“Sorta thought you might be having a worse time than you were letting on. You don’t gotta play the hardass around us, you know. We know who the weaker sex is around here, and it ain’t you.”

“Aw, Danny. That’s sweet. You make sure Sean remembers that around all those badass girls he’s gonna be at school with.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Danny laughs and messes up Jamie’s hair as they pass by. If it weren’t that he’s got every reason to be giddy over his sons’ various goings-on, and his and Baez’ recent recognition for their work, Jamie might think he was high. But Danny’s just feeling genuinely better than he has in ages, and Jamie’s glad of it. Danny’s not going to like learning about the potential snake-pit that Frank’s sent them into, but that can wait.

* * * * *

They’re home.

Jamie’s home, that is. The subject of collapsing their apartments into one has come up again more often as of late. The most sensible option would be for them to find a two-bedroom place, so that they have a little space to spread out their libraries and furniture, and get out from under each other’s feet now and then. It would be nice to have Jelena or Bojan visit without having to put them in a hotel.

That’s what they say out loud, anyway. They’re awfully quick to deflect any suggestion of it being a kids’ room, though that’s also a sensible reason for needing the space. Just – not yet.

They’re curled up on the old, comfy beaten-up leather couch, listening to the jazz they both like to wind down the weekend with. The laundry’s done and the dishes put away, their families and friends are as well as can be expected, and it’s just them again.

Anchored fast within Jamie’s arms, coming back again and again for more kisses, Eddie feels herself borne along upon waves of affection and mellow desire, washing away the heightened emotions of the day. There’s no end goal. It’s just her and Jamie and a little downtime, a conversation punctuated with hitching breaths and stroking hands.

Kissing never felt like this in her twenties. Sex never felt so good. Not even close. Everything feels deeper and richer, hormones and muscles and sensitive nerves singing in chorus, her body ripe for the plucking. She knows what feels right and her body instinctually finds small ways of showing Jamie how and when to touch, without the slightest hesitation. When she murmurs a hint out loud now and then, Jamie’s appreciative little murmur and instant response sends a growl of delight all through her. Jamie’s a quick study and seems hellbent on cataloging her every shudder and sigh. And when he offers a suggestion in return, or confesses to some vision he’s got stuck in his head, she finds herself alternately pierced anew by his trust in her, or panting like a wild creature in heat.

Sending him so far out of his head that he can’t process two thoughts in a row is one of her favorite things. They’ve ended up having pretty great sex (or at least collapsing in laughter) on nearly every stable surface contained within their two apartments, and up against a few walls. Two quite flexible partners, one of whom is entirely capable of supporting the other’s weight, is really…kind of magical.

But for now it’s just this. Quiet and safe, grounding in each other. And maybe that’s why, with thoughts of babies who never asked to be born into strife still in mind, she hears herself say that they should check in on Angela and Manuel and little Eddito soon.

“We should,” Jamie agrees, his lips meandering softly over her throat. “You look good with a baby on your lap. I’m just saying.”

She doesn’t giggle and shrug off his kisses, as she usually does when he says things like that. She hums and sinks a little deeper into his arms. “Feels good, too,” she admits. The kisses pause, and then start up again on a path down to her clavicle.

“What’re you thinking about?” he asks.

“Something Jelena said earlier, that put a whole lot of things into perspective. About the way my mom was with me, because of how my grandmother was with her. It all comes back to that missing baby. Even how my mom never really liked me playing with dolls, now that I think of it. That’s two generations with hangups about dealing with babies, and I just assumed I didn’t want any, all along.”

“And now?”

“Well, I mean, you know I _do_ want them. With you. You know that, right? I still get nervous at the thought of having to know what to do with one. I guess that’s pretty normal, but I never had other women around who’d had babies and were good at passing on baby know-how. And I had this dream a while back, Jamie, a really vivid one. I was looking after a toddler I’d found. It was in Prijedor. It wasn’t mine, but I picked it up and cared for it, and I knew what to do. It was okay. I knew we’d be okay, if we just stayed together and I could keep it alive. I’d forgotten about that until today.”

“So…” Jamie’s hand comes up to cover her belly, and a shiver thrums through her at the thought of him cradling a baby of theirs that way. “Are you saying you want to start trying? I mean, now?”

“No, not right now. There’s still a lot we both need to do. More like – I feel like if it happened, I know it would be a good thing. I think this has been settling in for a while, but it really hit me today ‘cause of all the family stuff, and wishing I knew more about this baby. Or not-baby. I’m not my mother and I’m not my grandmother. I might not have an Aunt Lizzie for help, but I know I’ll have Erin, and you and Danny are amazing with kids, and – oh, Jamie, relax. I’m just saying, I feel like I’m ready, that’s all. The rest is just figuring out the timing and the practicalities.”

“I’m not freaking out,” Jamie murmurs into her shoulder, still rubbing her belly in slow circles. “It’s just that I really hoped you’d feel that way. It’s a big deal.”

He’s not freaking out. He’s tearing up a little.

It’s a big deal.

She turns over in his arms and stretches out, looking down at him. Her eyes are misting up a little, too. Jamie cups her cheek in one warm hand and strokes very gently under her sore eye. It feels good, like a healing salve, and she turns her face into his palm and presses a kiss there.

“I can’t believe we got so damned lucky that we met,” she tells him.

“What about soulmates?” he prods, with a bratty little grin.

“Ha! No, I meant what I said at the time. I guess I really needed a reason to believe in soulmates, and it seemed like time was moving awfully fast. What if I didn’t meet them until really late in life? What if I’d already met my soulmate and didn’t recognize them?”

He pulls her down for a kiss. “I recognized you,” he says, in that sweet, husky voice that gets her in the gut. “It took me a while to clue in, is all. And then I thought I had to let you go just to be able to be near you.”

“But here we are.” She kisses him back, and settles in his arms. “Hey.”

“Hey, what?”

“Something Bojan said about going easy on my dad, ‘cause it’s the organized gangs who pick on good men trying to do the right thing for the ones they love. I think I need to sit Manuel and Angela down, when we see them, and tell them the whole story about my dad. I don’t have to tell them about Ken Cooper and how I got him to hire them. I trust them, but they’re just the kind of really great people who might get sucked into something they thought would be good for their family. And then they’d have no chance at all with Immigration.”

He strokes the hair off her forehead, thinking. “Smart man, your cousin. Apparently it runs in the family.”

“You think I should?”

“I do. They listen to you. Even if it’s just a cautionary tale, it might save them trouble. And I bet it would feel good to know your dad’s history can protect another young family from making the same mistake.”

“Mm. Yeah. Can’t deny that.”

“When do you see your dad next?”

“Couple of weeks.”

“So for now, just back to work, train hard, keep our eyes open and come home in one piece. Maybe see Angela and Manuel on Friday, if they’re up for it.”

“I can do that.”

“I couldn’t do this without you,” he tells her. “This is all way bigger than just going undercover.”

“Oh, I know. I mean the part about it being bigger than that. I’m just glad I’m here for it, too. If there’s anything to learn about the Templar, or any other kind of group forming like that, I wanna know. I have absolutely no tolerance for people abusing trust like that, especially the NYPD! I mean – what?”

Jamie is openly laughing now, holding her tight against him. “You just don’t let up,” he says. “I was trying to have a nice moment there, and you went all crusader again.”

“Did I? I guess I did. Sorry. What were you saying?”

“That I couldn’t do this without you.”

“Well. Me neither. And to think how close we came to being separated in the field.”

“Technically, they might still try.”

“We’ll deal with that later.” She traces little patterns just over his belt buckle, and he squirms under her touch, his long lashes closing over his eyes in pleasure. “Just right now, I have had a roller coaster of a day, and I need chocolate ice cream, Lent or no Lent, a hot bath and a brain-melting orgasm or two. It’s only seven and there’s lots of time. You in?”

“What kind of a question is that?” Jamie asks, nearly dumping her off the couch in his haste to sit up. “You get the ice cream, I’ll get the bath started.”

Soulmates indeed, thinks Eddie fondly, letting out a wolf-whistle as Jamie puts a sashay into his hips as he heads toward the bathroom. She may not be much of a deist, but some days she thinks she gets a glimpse of some grand design that has set them all spinning and crashing into one another. Today is one of those days.

And if Jamie’s off-key singing over the sound of the bathtub filling is anything to go by, it’s not going to be over anytime soon.

* * *


	16. Chapter 16

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sometimes it's hard to breathe.

On Wednesday morning, he really does crack a rib. This time it’s his R-4, across from the splotchy bruise that is just beginning to fade to a fuchsia pink on his left side. He’s broken this rib completely before, in boxing. The spreading pressure on the interior curve finds release just in front of the old bone callus, where he most needs the breathing space.

It’s not an accident. It’s a stupid, foreseeable error.

He’s engaged in a combat scenario with Lucas, who is two hundred pounds of twenty-five year old, well-coordinated, street-trained muscle in baggy bright nylon drawstring shorts the colors of the Cameroonian flag. Jamie’s got lightness and speed working for him, and predictable boxing swings working against him. He still tends to use only his upper body in combat, relying on his legs to move him around.

Lucas is a bit of a tank by comparison, but where he wants to end up, he will end up. If Lucas wants to flatten someone, given enough time and proximity, he will. He swings his fists like spiked mace balls on chains, and his kicks are like battering rams. As long as Jamie can keep ahead of his momentum, he might just walk out of this round.

That’s the objective with these drills: walk away. It’s best if you incapacitate your opponent to the extent that they can’t or won’t come after you, but it’s not worth spending extra energy on making sure they _stay_ down. It’s about gaining a five-second escape window.

Jamie thinks Lucas is making him do most of the work, trying to tire him out. It’ll work, eventually. Jamie’s landed a few good hits, mostly by playing really dirty and yanking Lucas’ head back by his short dreads, or getting a thumb near enough to his eye socket that it counts as a poke in practice. That’s the nature of a matchup between their two body types and fighting styles. Jamie’s going to have to find a way to end it soon. Boxing rules are no use to him here. These sessions are about improvisation and playing to their strengths, with whatever is handy.

Honestly, if Jamie wanted, he could probably use his own shorts to distract and then throttle Lucas, and get a round of applause from Boucher. If his shorts were all he had between himself and a young thug who actually wanted to kill him bare-handed, he wouldn’t think twice about dignity, but they do seem to preserve a shred of decorum while in the One PP.

“Ha!” he barks out a quick laugh at the mental image, sucking in a much needed breath afterwards. He’s soaked, his shirt long cast off. Sweat and blood from minor scratches are smeared over both of them as they duck and weave. Lucas has landed a painful kick on Jamie’s thigh that’s going to blacken. Jamie’s done something to Lucas’ right shoulder that he hopes won’t freeze it up overnight, because he likes the grinning ex-con turned informant, after all. He thinks he might surprise Lucas with a fireman’s lift and drop, a specialty of his. If he can just get his shoulder wedged against Lucas’ ribs and an arm around his thigh, he could use the principles of physics against him.

As Jamie grabs Lucas’ leg, ducks down and drives his shoulder into his side, suddenly Lucas’ large, clublike knee is positioned right where Jamie’s midsection is headed at high speed. Jamie feels the air whoosh out of him, and then his ribs send him a polite memo that they’re not supposed to bend inward that far, please. And then the second warning arrives, and a final notice right after. He hears a sickening wet pop and feels something give in his along his front, and pulls away by instinct. He finds himself sitting down on the mat, hard. As Lucas looms overhead, Jamie rolls away in a hurry, and that’s when the pain really hits, a swelling yellow-orange on his mental scale. He gasps but can’t inhale properly, even after being nearly winded by Lucas’ knee, which makes it worse.

“Time!” he croaks, sitting back on his heels before his vision goes patchy. He sucks in little breaths like swallows, trying not to move his intercostals. He knows this feeling. Cracked but not broken, at least. It’s a rising sharp ache, one that’s going to stick around for a few weeks. Shit. He’s going to have to scale back on training if he wants to heal cleanly.

“Damn, Ireland,” Lucas says, out of breath himself. He peers down at Jamie. “Thought you was gonna pull out a magic wand out yo’ ass or somethin’.” He reaches a hand down, but Jamie shakes his head with a wave of acknowledgement.

“Tried to. Boucher – ” he calls, his voice reedy and tight. The bullet-headed sergeant looks away from spotting Geoff and Eddie doing horrible things to each other with pressure-point attacks above their major joints, and heads over.

Every Reagan has an inner bastard that lurks within. As Lucas leans over him, Jamie keels over onto his good side, then rolls on his back and punches up with the heel of his foot between Lucas’ legs, grabbing the nearest ankle and pinching the tendons up the back. He pulls his kick just before it can hit Lucas’ ballsack, but Lucas, surprised, yelps and tries to step backwards, only to find his calf gone limp and held in a death grip. He comes crashing to the thin mat, flat on his ass. Jamie winces at the impact. Someone of Lucas’ size might snap his tailbone with a fall like that, but that’s sort of why they’re doing this.

Lucas’ hands are too far away to grab Jamie, and that’s his chance. Jamie rolls away onto his knees, his eyes stinging with sweat and pain. He manages to struggle to his feet and walk out of the scenario, tacitly winning the round, although they don’t keep score. Lucas sits up and rubs his hip as he looks around.

“That sorta bullshit, yeah,” he grumbles. “Come at me wi’ my own game, why don’cha?”

Boucher is watching. “You boys done already?”

“I’m good,” Jamie says, his jaw clenched. The pain will ease up at some point, but for now it’s still acute and starting to pound. With one hand braced on the gym’s painted cinder-block wall, he palpates his sore rib with the other hand, locating the point of injury. “Definitely cracked, but nothing out of place. We got any tape in here?”

“You want tape?”

“Better now than later.”

Boucher shakes his head. “This ain’t the precinct mini-gym. Work through it. Know your pain and endorphin cycles. Use them.”

Jamie swipes the sweat out of his eyes, and for the first time, wonders if he’s too old for this shit.

“Copy,” he says shortly.

NYPD Health and Safety guidelines have nothing to do with the work they’re doing here. It’s not so much the pain, as their mental response to _being_ in pain, while trapped in a dangerous situation and without any help nearby, that Boucher is trying to prepare them for. He wants to tell Boucher that he _knows_ , he’s dealt with these injuries before, but he’s not about to whine.

Besides, Boucher is right. Jamie learned to navigate his pain response a long time ago, but repair and self-care were also built into his routines. He’s always had help nearby, even if only a code word and an extraction window. Alone and injured, how long can he last, and with what kinds of damage? He’s never had to find out. He can still fight with a cracked rib, but it’s up to him now to learn what he can still do and what will cause him more damage.

“Reagan?” Eddie pants, jogging up. Her black and gray racerback tank and half-tights are soggy and sticking to her, her black eye faded to a greenish-yellow hue. Her bare knuckles are sore and scraped. No tape for hands, either. She shoves back a damp strand of hair that’s escaped her ponytail and takes his measure, one hand on her hip.

“S’okay, Ed,” he tells her, shortly. “Nothing major.”

She’s not happy with this answer, but it’s as good as he can give her for now. She’s going to be in a twittering rage with Boucher later on, when they’re comparing battle scars in bed.

He has the feeling Boucher is winding up to pit the two of them against each other. They’re the only pair who haven’t sparred seriously. Not to inflict damage. He has no idea how they’ll react. He suspects they’ll either half-ass their way through and deal with getting yelled at, or they’ll pull out all the stops and really try to see what the other is made of.

Partners train together all the time, but not like this, and not usually when they’re as physically unmatched as he and Eddie are. He has no idea which version of themselves he hopes they let out on that day. It’s not like they’d ever blame each other for knowing their strengths and weaknesses as well as their own.

Not long ago, he thinks, they might have squared off and given it their all, curious as much as intent on enjoying a good physical tussle. Now, he’s not sure if his hands will let him do anything that he knows might cause her the slightest harm. After Eddie’s revelations of last week, he keeps having flashes of her pregnant, or playing with their baby.

It’s a latent instinct emerging, drifting out of his DNA and sending him random urgent messages during the day and night to check on her well-being, when she last ate, if she’s breathing. Reminding him not to jostle her too hard, even in sex, even in training. It’s harder and harder to watch her going up against their training partners, who are massive brutes next to her except for Flavia. She tells him it’s sweet, for now, but she hopes he’ll come back to earth soon.

This is not the time or place for those thoughts.

He turns back to the work at hand before Boucher starts asking him if he’s really up for this, in that deceptively soft voice that implies he really hasn’t got much faith in the PC’s youngest kid sticking it out much longer. Maybe he should just go trip up bodega shoplifters and fiddle with paperwork and leave the dirty fighting to the younger men. Boxing is fine prep for most of the situations that beat cops encounter, but it’s very…polite…compared to what goes on here.

“Breathing practice,” Boucher calls out. “Switch partners.”

A chorus of muted groans rises. At least it means they’re nearly done. Boucher has been training them to un-learn their own breathing patterns, forcing them to take odd inhales and let out _kiai_ cries at unexpected moments. Since they can’t prevent themselves from telegraphing, the point is to telegraph _garble_ , in their breathing and extraneous feints and distracting little movements, to disrupt their opponent’s subconscious reading and timing.

It sounds simple, but it’s the hardest thing to do and still function normally. Breathing is an autonomic action, and bodies want oxygen at predictable intervals. They look like they’re jerking around and yelling in the grip of stimulant drugs, which Jamie thinks may well be how the street gangs first learned to capitalize on it. Flavia’s the best at it, since she used to be a competitive swimmer and is used to making her body adjust to opportune breathing intervals between strokes. Lucas admits outright that it makes him panicky, and Eddie ended up exploding in frustration last week, unable to make her body submit to her will. They only do twenty minutes of this at a time, the final push at full speed, riding on sheer adrenaline.

They’ll get to shower off and feed and rehydrate after. So they pull themselves together and pick new partners. By now the class doesn’t need to apologize for what they’re about to do to each other, but they’ve all developed little pre-fight habits: a bow, a fist bump, a nod of respect. And then they set to work on taking each other down as quickly as possible.

It’s not until Jamie turns to Geoff, giving him a once-over to see how his sore knee is doing today, that he notices Pascal leaning casually in the doorway, watching him as if he’s just checking in on Boucher’s current crop. Maybe that’s all he’s doing, but Jamie’s neck prickles anyway and his heart thuds.

Because standing behind Pascal is Sergeant Foster of IAB.

_Frosty_.

Jamie looks over at Eddie as quickly as his ribs will let him. By the time she catches his glance and mouths a curious, “ _What_?”, Pascal and Foster are gone.

 

* * * * *

 

“I’m looking down the barrel at forty now. I used to be pretty decent at blending into the street-level stuff, at least the middle-class white-boy stuff. But forty is, like, you’re either one of the uncles running your own branch of the family business from a bar, or you’ve left town and gone straight. The street hustling’s for younger men. Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just feeling old. I used to be good at this.”

They’re on their way to Fort Dix, in Silver Belle. Neither is in a glowing mood. Eddie’s already on her third coffee at ten o’clock on a Saturday morning, since she didn’t sleep much last night in advance of this visit to her father. Jamie is mending, but sore and cranky. They haven’t had sex since Wednesday, and they made the mistake of getting each other all turned on last night even though they weren’t up for much else, between sore ribs and second-day period ick and combined stress. Neither wanted to just get off without the other, and they finally fell into a hazy, scattered, unsatisfied sleep.

They’d much rather hide under the covers together today, reading to each other and resting up, but that’s out of their hands. They’re not just there to visit her dad, but to meet with the warden and Armin’s counsellor, to discuss his medical prognosis and upcoming parole hearing.

“Okay, well, two things,” Eddie begins, dredging up some crumbs of supportive energy from her scant supply. “One: you _are_ good at this. We’re fucking exhausted and in a dozen kinds of pain right now because we’ve been getting beat up every morning and talking about people killing people a lot. That’s really…not our thing. Two: what’s more important – being brilliant at every aspect of street work, or acting as Frank’s eyes and ears?”

Jamie leans back against the headrest and sighs. She knows he’d be nursing a giant headache if he wasn’t on painkillers for his cracked rib. His doctor, aghast that it took him two days to get checked out, wanted him on prescription-strength codeine to stop his muscles spasming, but Jamie insisted on nothing stronger than Tylenol. At least he’s wrapped up tightly now with the latest thing in K-tape. He’s breathing a lot more smoothly and has stopped groaning in his sleep when he rolls over.

Thankfully, their month of weaponless combat training is over. Eddie now knows more than any well-adjusted human would ever want to know about dropping someone with a kidney spike or how to turn testicles to useless pulp or take out an eye _on purpose_. What they might be called upon to use these skills for is still unknown. They might receive street-level assignments and long-op cover identities that mean danger and suspicion in every interaction. Or they might work only in short-term public space crime prevention. They might be reined in entirely and kept on intelligence work, but at least they’re in great physical shape, injuries notwithstanding.

What excites Eddie is the possibility of going undercover again as a trafficking victim – or better yet posing as a “welcome contact” for young girls landing in New York with dreams in their eyes. She could keep an eye on them, then, and work to extricate them before they met with real misfortune, unlike the local lures who are sent by the gangs to size up and befriend fresh meat as soon as they see the girls emerging from the Port Authority Bus Terminal.

Eddie knows so much more about the traffickers’ patterns of movements now, and the techniques they use to control the girls and extort the johns. Bojan has been telling her about the Belgrade side of a couple of known sex-trafficking operations that send “only the very best” European elite escorts to New York, under heavy guard and supervision.

If Eddie could crack a ring like that, she’d be over the moon. Out on the street, kicking ass, plucking waifs and strays from danger. Jamie’s best at defusing situations and working the system, especially with Erin’s help. She’d be so happy if they could find a way to blend their talents together.

For the next week, though, they have a brief reprieve, sitting in class in Advanced Narco Training at the John Jay College. The course is the capstone of their six weeks of special training. They’ll learn more about approved evidence-gathering procedures and street drug trends, and what undercover ops ATF and the CIA and the FBI are already running. They won’t be learning any new combat techniques while they’re in class full-time, but they’ll work out at the One PP after school, practicing the ones they’ve learned. And the week after next, Vance and Boucher will begin assigning them to shadow different operations, to assess their readiness and fit.

“You’re right,” Jamie says. “I know you’re right. I’ve just been off this week and I don’t know why. Not just the rib. That happened ‘cause my timing sucked.”

“We’re not each other’s extra sidearms anymore. We can’t step in and cover each other. It was time we got shook out of that. Can’t always count on having the same partner backing you.”

“It sucks. And what the fuck was up with Foster and Pascal? Set my teeth on edge. I don’t know what they’re planning. We’re right not to bring our cars to work.”

A chill passes through her guts. She knows Jamie’s talking about the attempt on his life the last time he got too close to the Blue Templar. The thought of anything worse than a training injury happening to him sends her near to panic, and she grips the wheel till it passes. They didn’t use to worry about each other like this. They used to be good at going into danger together. This is different. They’re not in lockstep anymore, working as a unit. There are too many unknowns and no puzzle-edges to work from, and being constantly on the lookout has worn them down.

“Things change again on Monday,” she reminds him, hoping that’s true. “We’ll be out of the One PP most of the day. And you can heal properly and get into your books and your head for a while.”

“Not too deep in my head.” Jamie says, seriously. “I’m not the only one dealing with shit. I’m not disappearing on you. I’m just venting.”

His hand covers hers, where it’s resting on the leather gear knob at a red light.

They share a smile that feels more like _them_ than they have all morning, and Eddie lets herself take in a deep breath.

“And I am not letting you down, or your father,” she says firmly. “We’re gonna come through all this just fine. You said yourself this was going to be a roller-coaster of a year.”

“I did, didn’t I?” he admits. “Just shut me up if I ever say that again.”

She eases Silver Belle into the turn lane that leads off to Fort Dix. They’re about seven minutes out. Time to set down their own baggage and refocus.

“Partner, you good?” Jamie asks her softly.

“All good. You?” she replies. Their old check-in, one they’ve done thousands of times, over radios or inside the cruiser, or silently, with eyebrows or hidden shin-kicks when necessary, like little kids.

“All good.”

She hopes so.

“You wanna, like, quit our jobs and go run an alpaca farm upstate with our ten kids or something?”

His howl of pained, taped-up laughter is therapy to her ears.

It’s a diversion, though. Jamie’s not going to like where her thoughts are headed regarding undercover work on the street. If she’s right and her career takes off along that trajectory, she’ll be putting herself in direct danger of a different sort. It will also mean she won’t be able to spend much time playing double-agent for Frank, and helping eradicate the last of those who killed Joe Reagan. And she has a feeling things are only going to get more difficult with Armin.

She’s hedging her bets on next week being calmer. She’s going to have to talk to Jamie about all of these things soon.

But not today.

 

* * * * *

 

“Dad, what can you remember about Nagymama Edit?” Eddie asks, once they’re all settled in the familiar Visitor’s Lounge, with paper cups of coffee and fresh-baked cupcakes from the prison training kitchen. She’s brought her cop boyfriend with her, the one who acts too good to be real. That’s all right. He likes the kid, if only for putting that gleam back in his baby girl’s eyes.

Armin leans back and regards her. _Mami_ Edit would have loved her granddaughter, he thinks, with real regret.

He set about trying to win a smile from her, even a little one. But even as he tells her stories about her tiny, resourceful, fiercely loving grandmother, his thoughts carry him elsewhere.

 

* * * * *

 

He remembers the day he first realized that the world was not like people said it was, even his _Mami_ Edit and _Apu_ Armin – Armin Senior – who surely knew everything. Even more troubling, it seemed, was that all the older people _already knew this_ , and kept shushing him when he pointed it out. Even his big brother Dominik, who was twelve.

“ _Fogd be_!” Dominik hissed at him, flicking his eyes to the closed door of the little bedroom they shared. “You want the _rendőrség_ to come take our parents away at night? And the rest of us, too?”

But Armin Jr. was only eight, and didn’t understand.

All he knew was that life didn’t seem to be getting any easier, nor were the adults he observed “working as with one heart and one pair of hands to build a future where all share in wealth and good fortune”, like the song they sang in school. Nobody actually smiled when they worked together. In fact, they seemed to take great pains to watch and criticize each other.

Nobody had plenty of food and medicine and clothes. Armin had watched in silence as his older brother’s shoes grew too shabby to pass down when they were outgrown, and for the first time, he wondered if he would have to go barefoot like the really poor boys in school. For months, he’d watched as the dinner on his parents’ plates grew smaller, and his and Dominik’s plates were mostly filled with potatoes and cabbage, and a bit of sausage boiled in the same water as the cabbage, to impart a little flavour.

Last fall, when Dominik had needed proper trousers for his entry into the High School, his mother had cried – for pride, she said – and then she’d asked Dominik if there wasn’t even one boy who still wore short pants, in the High School? There were, Dominik had admitted unhappily, but…

His mother had nodded, dried her eyes, and somehow Dominik had two pairs of good thick army-green trousers to begin High School with, and a pair of old shoes with a little wear left in the soles. School was free in Soviet Hungary, but decent clothes were costly.

Then, just yesterday, he had watched his mother wrap up a bundle of bright, shiny silver knives and forks that he had never seen, She hid them at the bottom of her woven canvas carry-all bag, checking to see if it looked heavier than it ought to do, and making sure nothing clinked when she swung it carelessly back and forth on her shoulder. _Mami_ hadn’t seen him crouching on the stairs of their little gray-painted row house, watching her. And Armin forgot to ask, later, lost in the unexpected pleasure of eating roast chicken for dinner, while swinging his feet in a pair of well-polished second-hand boots that didn’t pinch at all. They would do for a while: he could make them fit comfortably with torn-up bits of old socks stuffed in the toes for now.

He’d asked Dominik about the silver, as they got ready for bed, and got his ears boxed for it. He went to bed with his hand over his ringing ear, still not understanding, but knowing that it was more than just being poor, more than just shame. After all, everyone was poor now. There was some other danger that was being hidden from him. If they were so poor, why did they have real silver? And who was buying it?

When Armin started at the High School, he had four hundred and sixty _forint_ in coins and notes, hidden inside an old mitten at the back of his dresser drawer. He would not wear shabby boots to start at a new school. It would not be right for a boy at the top of his class. He’d spent two years earning a little here and there, carrying messages between houses, sweeping and weeding cracked concrete apartment frontages, running to the shops as fast as he could for the busy, overworked mothers up and down the block so they could add something nice to the Saturday dinner with their families’ meagre pay.

He was the only boy in his class to have brand new boots to start High School with. That was all right. Everyone agreed he had earned them out of his hard work, and after all, for second-hand shoes to exist, someone had to buy them new, and keep the shoe factories in business.

When he outgrew them, he sold them to a younger boy for five hundred _forint_ , and bought himself another pair.

When Armin was eighteen, and accepted to the _Budapesti Gazdasági Egyetem_ , the whole block congratulated him. It was not so unusual for an ordinary working boy to reach university anymore, since the Soviet system made it technically free and accessible for as many of the proletariat as possible. But the Budapest Business School, even as the Communist grip upon political education and correct state-approved thinking reached its peak, was still one of the best business institutes in Europe. Why, with a BGE degree, he might travel and work anywhere in the Soviet Union!

(Because nobody ever admitted any desire to work anywhere else.)

Armin moved into lodgings near the school, working as a tutor and a bicycle messenger in the evenings to pay for his room and board. He became very good at knowing where to find things his customers wanted, even his professors, and he never told tales. He knew he would get in as much trouble as them.

He never spent another night in his old home. When he visited his parents, he would come bearing a haunch of lamb or a plucked goose for dinner, and fresh fruit from Spain or Turkey, all hidden at the bottom of his leather satchel. If he could, he would slip a few small bills into the old cigar box in the scroll-top writing-desk, without anybody noticing.

Then came 1980.

Armin had been working for the Socialist People’s Republic of Hungary as a mid-level commodities purchaser for the city of Budapest for two years. Technically, his work involved buying up infrastructure building supplies – lime and sand for concrete, great reels of electrical cable for city streetlights – but most of the money found its way elsewhere, into the shady layers of middlemen. The roads and buildings went unpatched, the streets dark.

In the United States, that unreal land of impossible capitalist excesses and unchecked immorality, a famous actor was elected President. Armin only knew Ronald Reagan’s craggy face from watching illicit cowboy movies at the home of a slightly disreputable colleague, who made a point of smoking obviously black-market cigarettes so that nobody would think to look further. Cigarettes were an understandable vice. American movies were not. Budapest barely allowed the BBC World News Service to be heard by its citizens.

Armin, as an import-export specialist with a need to know of world economic events, was allowed to listen to the BBC evening news at work, and even to borrow the Wall Street Journal from his senior supervisor, on occasion. In this way he worked to improve his spoken and written English, the rudiments of which he had learned at the BGE. This new American President, Armin realized, stood for everything that the Soviet system did not. Free enterprise. Free speech. An end to Communism and state rule over the daily affairs of citizens. _Meritocracy_. A man could progress and earn as much as he could, and live as he might.

He always returned the newspaper to his supervisor with a slight _moue_ of amusement and sorrow, as though these crazy Americans were surely not right in the head, even to be pitied a little. And he made sure that his behaviour was so orthodox, his party adherence so perfect, that when a rare trade delegation was assembled to travel to New York City, he was a natural choice.

On February 3rd, 1981, Armin Janko arrived at JFK International Airport in New York. After passing through Customs with his delegation, he had asked them to wait a moment before hailing a taxicab so he could use the airport lavatory. Luck was with him: nobody else accompanied him, not even the head of the delegation.

Armin never knew if the head had placed too much trust in him, or had already decided to let him go. Regardless, Armin walked around a corner towards the men’s lavatory at a measured pace, then turned again, and walked straight up to the first person in an NYPD uniform that he saw. He coughed to attract the officer’s attention, and then announced in his precise, British-inflected English that he was a Hungarian trade official and wished to defect to America.

It was surprisingly easy after that. He had no qualms at all about surrendering the few papers in his briefcase to the Immigration officials. He was amused that the CIA agents who questioned him in mixed Hungarian and English also investigated the small battered case for spyware or weapons. He did not mind being grilled for six hours about his work and connections, in a small but comfortable office in the airport. He had expected it.

He knew his fellow delegates would have waited in the airport lobby long enough for them to be spotted, and that they would be followed all over New York City. He didn’t mind. They would be safer in their hotel in a run-down section of Harlem than they would be in Budapest, with the NYPD watching them.

He assumed that the whispered stories of CIA employment of defectors was just a wishful rumor. What country could be so rich and generous as to adopt foreign sons so quickly? But he knew how to survive. He knew what people needed and how to find it for them.

His only fears were for his family, _Mami_ Edit, Armin Sr and Dominik, now a factory worker with a lovely wife. They would all would surely come in for many rounds of far less polite questioning in the days ahead. He had left behind a thick envelope for his mother to open as soon as he left. Inside was a letter explaining nothing but assuring her of all his love for them all, and as much money as he’d been able to convert into small bills, to allow them to spend it little by little without raising questions. He knew she could safely turn over the letter to the authorities. There was nothing incriminating in his words except to beg for his parent’s eventual forgiveness, as they had always raised him to be a true Soviet worker.

Armin always said afterwards that his first week in America convinced him that dreams come true. As a Young Pioneer and a good Communist, he had never set foot in a church, and had learned never to ask about the old Orthodox Christian and Muslim iconography that were still woven into the tapestry of Budapest. He knew no prayers, appealed to no saints. But he believed in the power of hard work and fervent aspiration, and they surely came to his aid.

The CIA put him up in a hotel for a week while they decided what to do with him. He was issued a meal and clothing allowance that seemed exorbitant to him, and a daily minder, and he was ordered to report to a particular office downtown during regular business hours. He sat in a shared office with two American men, and read American newspapers and listened to the music on the radio, in between sporadic interviews with many different people. He flirted politely with the ladies who transcribed his interviews, and they smiled patiently. He felt he had landed on his feet.

_If Mami could only see me_ , he thought, smoothing the lapel of his new light grey suit. It was cheap polyester, but who cared about that? It was better cut than anything he had ever worn.

Eventually he was offered a six month contract as a document translator and occasional consultant on Hungarian imports and exports. He accepted immediately and with great dignity, feeling like he and these Americans might be worth something to each other after all.

He didn’t realize, at the time, that this was a standard offer, and that he essentially had six months of close surveillance ahead of him before he was left to sink or swim on his own. He didn’t know of the many Communist-trained doctors and brilliant engineers and industrial experts who were left working as cheap manual laborers once their post-defection grace period was over. The CIA was willing to suck out all of the information and insight he could give up, but he would always be a Cold War Commie turncoat to them.

Armin was luckier than most, though. He was good at making friends. Within another week, he’d found a room in a boarding house and had plans to find a decent apartment next. He’d made a couple of casual friends at a bar near his digs, a Russian called Sasha (what else?) and a Bulgarian called Kaspar.

Sasha and Kaspar worked as casual laborers on the docks, they said. Whatever work they found, it certainly did them well. Armin never saw them at work, but there in the bar, they appeared to be big, well-fed men with good clothes and ready money. They knew what it was like to be shunned from normal American bar-chatter and billiards on account of their names and accents, but they were accepted at a few bars in their part of Harlem as long as they kept to themselves and caused no trouble.

They’d seen a few good fellows from the old country fall into the trap, and they promised Armin they would teach him all they knew about surviving in New York City under President Reagan.

“You’ve come to the right place,” they told him, raising their glasses. “It’s the best city in the world.”

 

* * * * *

 

“It’s going to be quite a transition for him, after eight years here. We do try to begin bridging them into the community with supervised activities a few months ahead, but we don’t like to start too far out, if you understand. Anything could happen in here that might hold up a prisoner’s parole. Fights, drugs, whatever.”

“Of course,” Eddie says to the sharp-faced, tired-looking warden. “I hope by now we can say he’s at a very low likelihood to re-offend in any way.”

Eddie’s feeling almost buoyant by comparison to how she felt on her arrival at Fort Dix. Her father’s amusing childhood memories of his mother and older brother have filled in empty holes she never knew existed. She knows he was self-editing, and that there’s got to be more to his stories, but that can wait. He’s lucid, and he’s stopped talking about selling data mined from laundry to supposed shady government agents or socially-programming market research firms.

She’s mimicking Warden McDermott’s serious tones so hard that she’s almost being sardonic – what harm is her physically fragile, sixty-seven year old father going to do? He who faced down a prison drug gang armed only with warm laundry? But the warden nods.

“We do estimate him as a very low-risk prisoner at this point,” she agrees, “But it’s common to see prisoners acting out before their release, going off their medications, anything to delay them having to go out that door and deal with the free world again.”

“Well, he seems to be pretty keen on visiting the library and concerts in the park,” Eddie says. Beside her, Jamie sits forward a little, as if something’s in the warden’s words have caught his attention.

McDermott picks up her pen. “Is that what you’ve decided on? The library and some concerts? We can certainly work with that.”

“Excuse me?”

“For Armin’s supervised community integration activities. You’ll take him to the library? And concerts in the park?” McDermott says, as if Eddie’s missed the boat somewhere along the way. “You’ll want to make sure that you commit only to the schedule you can keep. Regularity is very important to prisoners. They live by schedules, you know. We want them to start forming new patterns they can keep up during their parole. Now, what about a four-hour afternoon release, once every two weeks, starting next weekend? That should allow for a meal out and a decent amount of library time, and won’t interfere with his medication schedule. Won’t be any outdoor concerts till July, at this rate, not if these storms keep up.”

Eddie dies not chuckle along with the warden. Her good mood has turned leaden.

“Wh – next _weekend_? No, I – we hadn’t been talking about anything like that. We – ” she waves a hand loosely between herself and Jamie, “Look, we want to help, but we’re undercover _cops_. We’re still in training. We gotta go where we’re told, and that means being available. It’s not safe work.”

She almost wishes her black eye was still good and glorious looking, to prove how dangerous even their training can be, and how dedicated she is to that part of her life.

“I understand that, Officer Janko. But your father is about to face a parole board that’s likely to award him release on conditions. It’s time to start thinking about re-integrating him into your life again. I know it’s been a long time since you lived together. We have social workers who can – ”

“Excuse me,” Jamie interjects softly, seeing that Eddie is temporarily speechless. “Can I just ask – we were given to understand Armin would be living in a supportive halfway house for at least a year.”

“That might be one option, yes. But New York City Housing Services has much sicker and harder-to-house men to place, who don’t have stable families to return to.” She looks at the two of them. “Family reunification is always the best prognosis for a parolee, except in special circs I’m sure you’re familiar with from your side of the job. Nobody’s mentioned this to you?”

Eddie clears her throat and mutters, “No. Never.”

Maybe her father’s idea about coming to live with her wasn’t a delusion at all, but something he’d been told he might work towards?

“I see,” McDermott says, though she clearly is just waiting for them to absorb this and move along. “Well, you’ve obviously got some figuring out to do. The Parole Board hearing isn’t for four months. I’d suggest you take that time and use it. Get to know your father again. There may be some supports available through the state, or through your police union. If you’d like to request a social worker to accompany you on your father’s release passes, I can arrange that.”

“You don’t understand. I can’t have him move in with me. I left home at eighteen and that was that. I don’t have a spare room or anything. I don’t even…”

She can’t say it out loud.

_I don’t even know if I want anything to do with him._

She can admit to herself that sometimes she honestly she wishes she’d never reunited with him. Armin’s changed, yes, but he’s still manipulative and cunning and draining, and he’s going to need a level of daily supervision and control that she simply cannot provide. And she can’t expect Jamie to, either. Or Mira and Bradley.

She feels sick to her stomach about it. Armin’s failings were never as a father. She’s failing pretty hard as a daughter. She knows damn well that as moderate a salary she makes and as small an apartment as she has, she’s still vastly more stable than many prisoners’ relations.

McDermott sees right through her. She gives Eddie a brisk lecture that she’s obviously had plenty of practice at delivering. “You realize what kind of life your father can expect to live without your support? He’s leaving a sheltered, protected place, and going out in the world with no job, very few contacts and no sustainable means of financial support except a state pension. Do you really want to put him in a single-room boarding house, and leave him to fall under bad influence again, or go off his meds? Because he will – and he’ll either get re-arrested and violate his parole, or be forced into a state hospital where you know what the standard of care is like.”

Eddie wants to shriek that if her father had been properly diagnosed years ago, and not by a prison doctor, he’d never have been sedated so heavily as to damage his executive function and mental stability. Maybe he’d never have gotten so desperate as to steal and defraud all of his friends and their friends, and go find cocaine, for God’s sake, to take the edge off the lows.

But that wouldn’t do any good.

“Warden, this isn’t something that can be decided in one day,” she says, hearing her voice turn brittle and remote. “I have to go. I’ll be in touch.”

She rises to her feet in the cold, graceful leave-taking way she learned from her mother, and doesn’t even wait to see if Jamie follows her.

He does, of course, after offering a hasty farewell to the warden.

 

* * * * *

 

“This is not where I was supposed to have ended up, at this point in my life.”

“Nothing’s ending,” he reminds her. “There’s just a hell of a lot going on. For both of us. The worst part about this whole week is that it’s getting harder to see where the ends _are_. We’re both up to our necks.”

He’s trying to remind her that they’re in this together, for the long haul, but he’s not sure if she heard that part.

Usually, when he accompanies Eddie to Fort Dix, she lets him drive on the way back. She’s often pretty tired after dealing with Armin, and happy to doze off on the way home. But today she’s driving like her daddy could pay off her speeding tickets and buy her a new Porsche if she gets into a scrape.

“Hey, uh, Eddie?”

“Mm?”

“You wanna maybe let me drive? I don’t mind, I – ”

“What? I’m fine. And you’re not supposed to be driving with that rib.”

“Okay, then, could you maybe ease up a bit?”

She stares at him, clearly not fine. “Quit distracting me, then. We’re on the highway. I’m not going any faster than anyone else.”

“If you say so.”

She huffs out an annoyed breath. They both bite back whatever they were about to let out.

What Eddie needs, he thinks, is a hard drinking session with Erin, and possibly Nicky. Erin, to meet her glass for glass and roll her eyes at all the Reagan men, and call her out when she strays into bullshit. Nicky, to remind her of other important things.

But he’s not going to say that, either. He remembers this feeling. They’re rolling closer to the event horizon of a blowup. It’s how they always used to release stress, when having someone around who knew all their tells and secrets was more frustrating than whatever was causing the stress in the first place. They couldn’t back off and give each other space from within the front seats of the cruiser, so explosions happened.

Since they got together, they’ve found alternate methods of stress reduction, but not this week. And they’ve been on their best behaviour around each other for months.

“What?” Eddie asks, after another mile or so. “Spit it out.”

“Just wishing I knew what I could do to help,” he says. And really, it doesn’t matter what he said, because even the sound of his voice is enough to hit her detonator switch.

“Well, unless your _perfect_ family wants to take in my criminal-ass, felonious, _fucked-up son of a bitch of a father_ , I can’t really think of anything, either.”

“Well, I would if I could, Eddie, but I’m a bit busy trying not to get _killed_ like the rest of my perfect fucking family seems to do, ‘cause _my_ father’s playing _me_ like a fucking pawn to clean his house with.”

So much for best behaviour.

“ _Don’t ever fucking talk about dying on m_ e _!_ ”

The dull ache shooting around his middle cuts off his breath and brings him down a notch, just as he's getting up a good head of steam.

“Eddie. Whoa. Over there. C’mon, pull in over there.”

“Shut up. Don't try to talk. I’m stopping.” She does, harshly, hauling up on the emergency brake. “You want me not to drive? Fine.”

She turns off the ignition and flings her seatbelt aside. She glares at him before she unlatches her door, stepping out into the highway pullout and slamming the door closed. She doesn’t go far, though, walking around to the concrete barrier skirting the outside edge, with her hands jammed in the pockets of her jeans. He watches as her shoulders heave, and one hand comes up to push her hair off her face where it’s being whipped by the wind.

For the first time, he doesn’t know whether to wait for her or follow. He gambles upon her needing some breathing space and prays it’s the right call. At least with Eddie, he won’t have long to wait to find out. She might sulk and glare till she’s made her point, but she doesn’t ever make him guess.

She comes back in a few minutes, and settles herself behind the wheel. She’s been crying, and the makeup around her bruised eye is all smeared, but she’s calmer.

“This is all really fucked up, and I’m really sorry,” she says, looking over at him.

“This is all _really_ fucked up,” he agrees, reaching for her hand, “and I’m really sorry, too.”

“Remember we said we’d find other couples who’d done this kind of work, and talk to them about how they dealt with it?” she asks, after a moment.

“You mean the working undercover while learning to be junior hitmen part, or the spying on our own trainers and colleagues in case they’re part of an organized crime syndicate within the NYPD?” he asks, with a slight edge of hysteria, “ ‘Cause I think I see the problem. No, you’re right. We’ve always had people to look up to. And right now all we’ve got are people we don’t want to let down.”

She wrinkles her nose. “Well, when you put it like that. You know what we’re like about wanting to impress people we respect. Who could we talk to, except your dad?”

“And he’s getting more and more obsessed with this Templar thing. I know he doesn’t want anything to happen to me, but I gotta ask myself if he’s calculated how much damage he’s willing for me to take to get the information he wants.”

She holds his hand harder. “ _Don’t_. I mean it. I can’t think about that. Not right now. I need you.”

“I’m right here. And I need you. More than I tell you.” He’s starting to get choked up, and for the sake of his ribs as much as his composure, he changes the subject. “I wish I knew what the best thing is for your dad and you. I don’t know what it’s like, but I know what it’s doing to you. And the warden today…” he shakes his head, “That’s a level of prison system bureaucracy bullshit I’ve never encountered. You don’t just dump that on someone.”

“She probably deals with the same thing all the time, families not wanting to reclaim their lost baggage,” Eddie says tiredly. “All I know for sure is he absolutely cannot live with me. And I have a feeling that the warden and the doctors and every social worker I see is going to put the heavy on me to let him, unless I can find a better solution.”

“We,” he reminds her. “Two heads. And lots of resources.”

“You know,” she says slowly, looking down at their hands, “I was all set to say I needed some time alone in my own space tonight. But I don’t think I want to after all.”

“You want to not be alone, or not be in your own space?”

“Not alone, and I don’t care where we are.”

“Well, we might as well get Silver Belle home and stay there,” he suggests. A thought strikes him. “Um. Eddie. The parking lot behind your building. Are there cameras there?”

“Oh, no,” she says, her eyes widening. “I don’t like this. Bad enough we don’t even drive to work anymore, but we have to worry about our cars being tampered with at home? Seriously, haven’t we been careful enough?”

“Not a matter of careful, just that if there are people who want to silence my Dad or scare us back to working the beat, they’ll try to, sooner or later. I’m thinking that everyone at work knows we’re going to be commuting to the John Jay campus all next week. Far away from the One PP and any shadow of blame. I’m not saying they’ll try anything. But they don’t know someone we know.”

“Who?”

“Sam Delamont. You think it’s time we cashed in on that favor he said he owed us, and see if we can borrow a couple of the drone cameras they took off his kid?”

 

* * * * *

 

It’s the quietest Sunday lunch in a long time. Danny and Sean are away on their road trip to Valley Forge Military Academy. Nicky has begged off, putting the final touches on the very last class presentation of her undergrad degree, for Crim Theory class. Eddie’s taking the day for herself, too, meeting with Walsh and Patimkin for drinks later on. Not just for a session. She wants to talk to Patimkin some more about Sergeant Foster.

Jamie sees how tired Erin looks, and wonders when he last saw her energized, or with that triumphant spark in her eye, or even in love. She’s not unhappy, exactly. She’s…banked with ashes. Waiting. Jamie thinks that Nicky’s university graduation and steps towards an NYPD career are weighing more heavily on Erin that she wants to admit. Nicky hasn’t needed a mother in a long time, but that fact can’t be avoided for much longer. And Nicky seems determined to carve out a path that Erin knew she couldn’t. Where does that leave Erin?

And when was the last time he and Erin caught up, just the two of them? He kicks himself for that. They’d always made time for each other, even at odd moments as their workdays allowed. There haven’t been any such opportunities lately.

Jack pokes at his meatless, Lent-approved enchiladas, uninspired. He’s been alone in his house since Thursday, and unlike many kids his age, wouldn’t have thought to take advantage of it. Jamie wishes he’d thought to call him, even if he didn’t have time to haul him out anywhere.

_This family is far from perfect, and sometimes I feel like the most imperfect piece of it_ , he thinks. They’ve given him everything, steadfast and solid, and he’s been caught up in the blaze of his new relationship with Eddie, and an all-consuming focus on work.

“This is a hard season,” Frank says. The family startles a little, not realizing how silent they had been sitting. “The run-up to Easter is supposed to be a time for a candid examination of our qualities. The finer and the lesser,” he adds, quoting the Bishop’s sermon from morning Mass.

“You think we’re all in a funk because of Easter?” Jamie asks, point-blank. He can see his grandfather eyeing him cautiously, and prickles a little. He knows he’s going through one of his periodic am-I-even-Catholic phases. Maybe that’s what his father’s talking about, in terms of re-evaluating what’s important and how he chooses to relate to it.

“Yes,” Frank says, equally point-blank. “We all go through these dark months under the soil, before we grow again. And being human, it takes us considerably longer than three days to do it.”

“It used to be called the ‘hungry gap’,” Jack recalls, “When all the food stores were running low and there wasn’t any fresh stuff yet, and everyone had to live on the last supplies that survived the winter. Grain pottage and stuff. So I suppose I should be grateful for enchiladas,” he says, with an effort.

“They’re not great,” Erin admits. “They didn’t turn out the way Dad and I thought. Not much flavor and kinda watery. Try more salsa.”

“Are we even supposed to _have_ salsa in Lent?” Jack retorts, and everyone snickers. Nobody appreciates food-sacrifice jokes quite like Catholics in the last week before Easter.

“It’s also looking like quite a year coming up, and we’re not sure where we’re going to get the energy to deal with all the changes,” Henry observes. “All the grandkids and their plans. Jamie and Eddie with their new jobs. The rest of us not getting any younger.” Jamie nods. That hits home. Henry either doesn’t know about the rest of Eddie’s family stresses, or the obligations that Frank has tasked them with. Jamie suspects he’s tactfully not mentioning them.

“You remember the family feeling like this when all us kids were getting ready to fly the nest?” he asks his grandfather. “We were more spread out, but it must’ve been…”

He has one of those flash-forwards that happens now and then, of he and Eddie being the ones to host the family dinners, and their kids and Nicky’s and Jack’s all dealing with school exams and breaking rules and taking chances on broken hearts, and Frank sitting where Henry is.

“Just like that, yes,” Henry says, as if he sees it, too.

After dinner, Frank makes a point of inviting Erin into the library for a chat and a shot of the twenty-year-old charred-oak Islay. He seems to be aware, somehow, that Jamie needs to not have his father grilling him about work and being some sort of a super-spy in training, for once.

Instead, Jamie and Jack set to work on clearing the dishes, while Henry goes upstairs for a nap.

“Is Eddie okay?” Jack asks, as soon as the kitchen door is closed. “I know you guys have been really busy, and the training looks brutal, but…”

“She’s got some stuff going on in her life, but she’s fine,” Jamie assures him. He looks at his nephew, competently scraping and stacking dishes on the counter. “You know what people mean by the honeymoon period of a new relationship?”

“When everything’s great and you get along all the time? Sure. Oh. So you guys are out of that now?”

“Seems to be,” Jamie says, as he rolls up his sleeves. “But it’s all just...stuff we have to learn how to get each other through. As a family. Lots of obligations pulling us in different directions, a few big unknowns, and not enough time or energy to sort it all out as cleanly as we’d like to.”

“So you guys didn’t have a fight or anything.”

“Oh, we did. Sort of. Not with each other as much as just venting a lot of fear and stress, hard. We’re gonna be fine. Everyone needs breathing space now and then.”

Jack nods, swishing suds in the sink, and not quite sure why his uncle is talking to him about this. “And _you’re_ okay?” he ventures, uncertainly.

“Getting out of the woods,” Jamie says. He opens the dishwasher and starts filling slots. “My point is, this is a really weird family to be part of, sometimes. People need a break from us now and then. Tasha’s going to need to. Even cops like Eddie. And sometimes we need to stand back and see how different we are.”

“You mean like the family safety codes and all of us being cops and military and stuff?”

“Yeah, and what that does to the way we look at the world. The world isn’t always out to get us.”

“Except when it is,” Jack says. He knows this firsthand, having watched his own house burn to the ground, at the hands of Russian mobsters out to punish his father, not caring who or what was burned as collateral.

“ _Except_ when it is,” Jamie agrees. “That’s the price of fighting the good fight every day.”

“Good men not standing idly by. And women.”

“Exactly. There’s a time and place to be paranoid and a time and place to trust people.”

“Who are you trying to convince, Uncle Jamie?”

Jamie pauses. “You still think about it?”

Jack doesn’t have to ask. “Every day.”

“Listen. You know when I joined up, a lot of people thought it was because of Uncle Joe. And that was certainly part of it. But it was mostly because it was what I needed to do. I just needed to get some other stuff done first, to know that I could. If anything happens to anyone else, Jack – I need to know that whatever you do, it’s because it’s what you need to do with your life. _Your_ life. Not anyone else’s. All this family solidarity comes at a price. Don’t let yourself feel emotionally bound to join up because of it.”

Jack, being no fool, looks him straight in the eyes. “It’s more dangerous than you’re telling us, what you and Eddie are doing, right?”

“All I know is it may be. I hope not, but I’m not going to back down if it is.”

He wasn’t expecting anything like that to come out of his mouth, not after his bitter little rant to Eddie earlier, but as he hears himself, he knows it’s true. He joined the NYPD to make the world a bit better with his own two hands, and he found an organization that needed to be made better, first. It’s been disillusioning and frustrating, but he’s beginning to learn to see how the organization is supposed to fit into the life of the city, and where it’s failing itself. And if he can help fix that, it’s not just for Joe and for his father, but for Nicky and Jack and all the kids who will follow in their footsteps.

“Is it something like what Uncle Joe was doing?”

“Yes. I can’t tell you more than that just now. It’s not all my story to tell. We’re being as safe as we can, and there's two of us, plus Dad.”

And then Jack, who is more and more his younger brother and less his nephew, says, “Hey. I won’t say anything to Dad. My Dad, I mean. He would freak. And I promise, if I join up, it’ll be because it’s the right time and the right thing for me to do. Okay?”

“Okay.”

“Is that what you came in here to talk about?”

“Not really. I just missed hanging with you. That house feeling empty yet?”

“It’s awful. I don’t ever want to live alone.”

Jamie laughs, feeling only a slight twinge from his rib, for once.

“I know the feeling,” he says.


	17. Genealogies Reference Page

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because things are getting complex!

* * *

Genealogies! Darker entries are the Serbian relatives mentioned by name.  
ALL NAMES ARE FICTITIOUS ET CETERA.

 

  
[ Click for larger version](https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/fixomnia/12744588/8120/8120_original.jpg)

* * *


	18. Chapter 18

_(Your faithful scribbler now returns from term-paper and exam madness, refreshed, relieved and ready to go! We are jumping back to where we left off, so our chapter begins back at Easter Weekend…I hope you've all got some cheap post-Easter goodies left to enjoy while you read.)_

* * *

Easter Sunday, 2018

Her stomach lets out another rumble of hungry protest, just as there is a lull in the conversation.

"Oh, that was a good one," Sean snickers, sitting beside her in the middle row of the Escalade.

On her other side, Jamie cracks up silently as she shoots them both a wry warning glare. He looks damn near edible himself, she thinks, all scrubbed fresh and dressed up in a pale gray wool and silk blend suit for Easter service. He's even gone to the trouble of finding a tie and silk pocket square, folded straight across with a perfect sharp crease, which match the dusty lilac in the swirly abstract pastel pattern on her new dress. It's a little like going to a dance or a wedding together.

Eddie has never equated going to church with anything romantic, but she decides it makes sense. Sitting with Jamie in the Reagan's pew in St. Patrick's Cathedral will be a very public statement of commitment, at least to the congregation who has marked so many decades of important family events together. It's why Jack and his girlfriend Tasha don't sit together in church, though her family has started sitting either just in front or behind the row of Reagans, knowing that the two would like to be near each other. On the rare Sundays when Tasha's family are not in attendance for some reason, she happily sits with Jack for the company, and nobody thinks anything of it, but in terms of community symbolism, she belongs to her own family first.

Jamie has tried to explain all this to her. It's all very heteronormative and paternalistic and more than a little coy, but there's also a nice pageantry to it, she supposes, if you're part of a big congregation who has watched you grow up. The thought of her own conspicuousness makes her squirmy, as touched as she is to be invited. She can wear her NYPD uniform and stride through a mall full of attitudinal teenagers and blatantly anti-cop glares, but smiling down the Church Ladies in a knee-length dress and heels is a daunting prospect.

She's already feeling a bit like an interloper, coming to celebrate the high point of the church year with them without being a communicant. Everyone's assured her that Easter service and Midnight Christmas Mass are when extended families and curious friends come along. Everyone is welcome to request a blessing whether they take Communion or not, and there are always plenty who do so.

The hardest part so far is the fasting.

Agreeing to take nothing more than a cup of coffee until after service sounded fine and supportive, in theory. But she's been up since six, as usual, and by now she's lightheaded and a little anxious about getting a headache partway through the morning.

"I don't think I've ever fasted more than ten hours, and that was by accident," she admits. "This is like my Lent season all in one morning, okay?"

"It's not everyone's tradition to fast until after Easter service," Frank allows, turning from the front passenger seat, "But it's ours. We appreciate you joining in the spirit of the thing, Eddie."

"The family Easter tradition you'll really love," Jamie says, "is Dad's Eggs Benedict. He's been perfecting his Hollandaise since I was a kid."

There's a chorus of hungry groans from within the Escalade. Danny, Henry and Jack, sitting in the back seats, start picking out which sides they'll choose, between roasted baby potatoes, lemon asparagus, shaved smoked salmon with honeydew, or fruit salad. Sean opts for a bit of everything, including Erin's fisherman's pie, loaded with seafood and topped with creamy potatoes. Nicky's made cupcakes, chocolate ones and cherry-vanilla ones, and Danny has roasted a large ham to perfection, some of which he will shave finely for the Eggs Benedict.

Sigurdsson, the current shift driver on Frank's security detail, smiles too. Though he's well-fed himself this morning, he'll get to indulge in the Reagan Easter lunch binge, though he'll be sitting in the front seat of the Escalade with the engine running as per protocol.

"I'm glad you all approve," Frank says, pleased. "Eddie, d'you want us to talk you through what to expect at Mass, or just let it unfold?"

She thinks about this. She's always tended to research new situations exhaustively, not liking to feel unprepared or be caught off guard. But this time, knowing the power of impactful first experiences, and knowing that she's as safe with the Reagans in church as she could possibly be anywhere on the planet, she decides against it.

"I'll just keep my eyes open and follow along. But thank you."

* * *

Sig lets them off near the front entrance, and then pulls ahead into the valet section. There are three official looking cars lined up there already: the Deputy Governor and a few Ambassadors and their families are in attendance, each with a small retinue.

Eddie's right about the Church Ladies. The greeters at the door of St. Patrick's are so _very_ happy to meet her, and Jamie is hilariously torn between total nonchalance and pride at showing her off. He still introduces her as his partner, by reflex, but it applies just as well.

She sits with Jamie on her left and Erin, who drove in with Nicky, on her right.

She's glad of her decision to experience the service with no preparation but the printed program. She loves the old pews, gleaming and sweet with beeswax and lemon oil, and the much-loved old kneelers in neat rows beneath. The vaulted stone cathedral is stunning inside and out, and warm with bodies and early spring sunlight streaming through the stained glass. She takes it all in in little visual bites, feeling free to let her attention wander a little as she's not really there to worship, technically.

The Mass rolls on like a familiar script, which, she realizes, it is: an annual interactive play that most of the congregation are very familiar with. Perhaps that why the language and stentorian, ringing demands don't seem to hit them as at all strange.

The sermon, coming partway through the service, is about letting go of the old year. The Bishop reminds them that Easter is not only a time of regrowth, but that it finally becomes impossible to deny that the old things have passed. Grief may actually feel like a heavier burden when surrounded by young and living things than it did in the winter, when everyone expects a certain amount of protection and comfort from the elements.

Out of the corner of her eye, she sees Erin slide a glance over to Danny and the boys, and it hits her that this is their first Easter without Linda. She can only imagine how deeply involved someone like Linda would have been with Easter activities.

Linda would have been so proud of them today, Eddie thinks. Danny, mostly pulled back together and doing well. Jack, so earnest and bright, about to graduate with honors, and truly headlong in love for the first time. And Sean, focused and much happier. He and Danny are better friends than they've ever been, and he's managed to impress his perfectionist older brother.

After the sermon, the Bishop announces the engagements of three couples, to a round of pleased applause and a hastily shushed whistle.

"We don't really read the Banns here, like some churches," Jamie whispers to her, "but some people like to announce it this way."

"Mm," she nods, filing that away for future reference. He catches her eye and smirks, grabbing her pinky briefly with his.

The service is very traditional today, with the strong reinforcement of creed and the acceptance of personal sin and penitence. For an outsider, the archaic phrases and the Bishop's performance of them are fascinating to watch and listen to. She wonders how much of the text Jamie professes a literal belief in, with his penchant for unravelling arguments down to the marrow. Others may be content to let the words wash over them and to feel carried along in a simpler faith, but this family, she knows would never be content with that.

Her favorite part is the music. She had no idea that she already knew the melodies of some of the hymns they sing, and since the program provides lyrics for the many "gophers" among them – those who only pop their heads up for Christmas and Easter – she can easily keep up. It's lovely to sing with a group again. She'd always sung a lot as a kid, even taking voice lessons for a few years.

Jamie and Danny are mumblers, which she knew already, but Erin and Nicky have perfect pitch and clear, Celtic soprano voices. Henry, to her surprise, has a flexible baritone with no hint of the warble of old age yet, and Frank has a powerful bass that he has to restrain. The boys are definitely singing, not just mouthing along, but very quietly.

She hadn't decided whether to go up during Communion and ask for a blessing, since she really has no context for such a thing, but there is so much standing and sitting that she finds herself on her feet anyway, with everyone else. It makes more sense to follow Erin out of the pew and into the line than to sit back down, though she sees a fair number of people keeping their seats.

Jamie touches her shoulder from behind. "Just cross your arms if you don't want to be handed anything. Like they are, look." He looks toward a couple who have reached the altar. They're standing with their arms crossed in an X over their chests.

So she does, feeling vaguely out of place but with an unexpected anticipation of…something, she's not sure what. Nobody, to her knowledge, has ever blessed her, except when she sneezes.

The Monsignor himself is administering Communion, along with six other priests, three on either side of him at temporary sub-altars, and a small army of altar boys running supplies back and forth and waving people along. With over two thousand congregants, they need all the help they can get, or they would be there all day. As it is, the program contains a warning that the Eucharist and Communion portion of the service may take upwards of an hour from start to finish.

She's glad that Frank heads straight for the Bishop's line, because she wouldn't have presumed otherwise. She knows the Bishop is personal friends with Frank, and that they occupy a similar rank in their very different services within the city. She hadn't realized that the Bishop knew anything about her, but he smiles and gives her a friendly nod as she approaches, after Erin moves ahead to the assistant holding the wine chalice.

The Bishop lays a large hand on her crown. It's a very odd sensation. It's not a manner in which anyone has ever touched her, except her own father, once or twice when she was very small and being rambunctious. Perhaps that's part of the spiritual significance of the gesture, she muses. It ought to feel, well, patronizing for a staunchly feminist non-believer, but it's comforting in its way. Not being held down, or kept in place at all, but rather like being under the hand of a competent doctor.

"Lord, protect those who serve and guard this city and its people," the Bishop says. " _In nomine patris, et fili et spiritus sancti_ , safe shift and safe home. Amen."

She laughs despite herself. The standard cop greeting delivered with such a dry wit, so smoothly after the Latin invocation, speaks to a long, long relationship of compromise and respect between Frank and the Bishop.

"Amen. Thank you," she murmurs, and moves along to follow Erin.

"Now I'm even hungrier," Erin admits, after the ritual host and sip of wine. The smell of coffee is starting to waft up from the vast meeting hall downstairs, where the volunteers are laying out refreshments for the post-service Fellowship Tea. It makes Eddie's stomach knot up all over again.

"Well, _offer it up_ ," Danny says, sardonically, "and think of brunch soon."

Jamie catches up with them, and slides an arm around Eddie's waist. She leans in as they walk back to the pews to collect their coats, and asks, "Remember last time we were in a church?"

He blinks, confused, and then his eyes light up as he remembers how they managed to sneak a sizzling kiss in the basement of the old deconsecrated church in Montauk, on the weekend they finally got together. Not nearly as chaste as the kiss of peace he'd given her an hour ago.

"Ah," he says, pinking up a little. "Yes. Vividly."

"Oh, I thought this was your first time," Erin says, overhearing. "Maybe I was mistaken?"

"Just work," Eddie replies hastily.

Erin eyes them both, but shrugs it off. "Nicky and I will meet you all back at the house," she says. "We can bring Jack too, if he and Tasha want to hang out a bit at the tea downstairs."

"No, but thanks," Jack says, hearing this, "We'll see each other tomorrow anyway. Just waiting for Pop."

Henry is taking an extra moment to share a few words with the young priest who had given him Communion. Henry is trying to break the younger man's serene composure with a story about a memorable Easter from his days as an altar boy, tripping with a full jug to refill the chalice of Hippocras wine. It works. There is some distinct chuckling to be heard from the altar.

In the course of a normal Mass, the congregation would retake their seats for some final words and perhaps another hymn before being enjoined to go forth. With such a crowd in the cathedral today, the program instead directs everyone – fairly pointedly – to devote some time to personal prayer while enjoying the musical offerings of the Choir as they proceed from the Eucharist to the Fellowship Tea, or return to their homes to enjoy the remainder of Easter.

* * *

He knows Eddie has plenty of questions for him, which they'll get to in good time, but for now, he's just happy to see her throwing herself into the fray without reservation. She's currently helping Frank in the kitchen, squeezing lemons and measuring white wine for the Hollandaise sauce. The sight of Eddie in her sleeveless pastel-toned Easter dress and demure beige heels with a big green kitchen apron over top is so incongruous with her personality that he can't help staring over the parsley and dill he's chopping fine.

"Shut up," she says.

"Hey, I nev – "

"Kids," Frank protests mildly, out of sheer parental reflex. His back is to them, as he's busy checking the temperature of the water in the double boiler. Turning around, he seems to remember that he's addressing two officers in their mid-thirties. "So Eddie, what was your take on the service?"

"Very intense," she says, "But I think that's the whole point for Easter, though, right? I loved the music. And the sun through the stained glass was pretty incredible."

"We used to call it Church-henge," Frank recalls, "Mornings when the sun was aligned just right."

"The Bishop is an amazing speaker," Eddie continues, "He's in the right job for that."

She's skirting around her thoughts, Jamie thinks, but he doesn't blame her. The Easter liturgy is especially hefty, with its references to suffering and redemption and the need to accept one's sinful human nature. Even as a mythological framework, it's a lot to unpack. Especially jumping right in with only the basic plot points of the Christian Easter narrative in your cultural mental file, and a tendency to be unsatisfied with half-answers.

She's read the Bible passages, though. "Whoever translated this wanted to be more impressive than understandable," was her initial frowning comment. She's probably right, historically speaking. She's curious about which aspects of his Catholicism he believes in, and how deeply, and why. He's not entertaining any visions of her converting, but he knows she's going to want real answers. He's known for a long time that he's more of a neighbourly New Testament Christian than a literalistic one. That makes him far more of an ecumenical Christian, theologically, but his family traditions are solidly, comfortingly Catholic.

A couple of weeks back, they'd hit a low point – or a high point of stress, however you chose to look at it. He'd broached the subject of visiting Father Markhum, his mostly-closeted priest friend and favorite confessor together. Not for Christian counselling, but for a different perspective on dealing with the rising uncertainties and possible dangers of their jobs, and Eddie's family stresses, what with her father and the search for the missing cousin.

She hadn't said no, but she hadn't jumped at the thought, either. He hadn't expected her to. She certainly respects those who keep their faith intact in the modern age, but Jamie knows that it's often confounding to understand why people chose to adhere to a religion full of contradictions and wild improbabilities among the deep wisdom and counsel, and which exhort a childlike faith in these things.

Instead, he'd chatted with Markhum alone, which they always enjoyed, and then he and Eddie had reached out to Augustus Timmins, head of security for Sam Delamont. What they needed most was practical, solid advice from a policing and high-level personal security point of view. They were always at their best as a couple when they were working through a challenge together. Besides, they wanted to pick his brains about the best way to take up Delamont on his supposed offer to help them in return if he ever could.

Augustus had been happy to hear from them. He'd invited them to come out for a meeting, and they'd spent a gorgeous, sunny but brisk Saturday in mid-March driving out to Montauk, for the first time since the previous November. They'd taken Silver Belle, because Eddie thought that Augustus would like to see her. She was right. Augustus raved about Eddie's old girl for a good twenty minutes, exclaiming over the custom work and the maintenance that Eddie had kept up.

Then they'd gotten down to business. They could talk freely in Augustus' small bungalow. The compound was all but empty at that time of year, with only Augustus and four other security officers living on site. The others were with the Delamont family at their Manhattan apartment block, serving as bodyguards or site security until the bulk of the family relocated again for the summer.

"So lemme get this straight," Augustus had said, passing around the coffee pot. "You been sent internal to watch for dirty cops. They were a serious threat once, getting into organized crime and shit, and they might be getting their legs under them again. You don't know who they might be, but you got some hunches. Meantime, you gotta pretend like you're just taking training to do normal undercover work, going along with what you're told."

"Pretty well," Jamie had agreed. There was no need to explain about Joe, or that they weren't exactly working through Internal Affairs. "And we've been warned to watch our backs. This group has actually killed officers who got too close. We know that for certain. Two were shot. They tried to blow up another one in his car."

He didn't bother pointing out that he was self-referencing.

"Sheeit," Augustus said quietly. "Dirty money's a fucking brainwashing cult, is what it is."

"Got that right." Eddie muttered, for reasons of her own.

"Right. So," Jamie said, moving on quickly, "Our two major concerns are that neither of our apartments have video in the underground garages, and that we're going to be training offsite at a college campus nest week. We won't be at the One PP, where there's high security and plenty of friendlies. If anyone wants to slow us down or let us know _they_ know what we're looking for, that would be an opportunity."

"We were thinking of the drones that Delamont's kid was flying," Eddie chimed in, "Something that small, we could easily place in our garages, or even in our cars, and control them from a distance. Even have someone we trust watching for us. It wouldn't stop anything, but…"

"Proof is the next best thing," Augustus said, seriously. "If it comes to that."

"Which we hope it won't, but it has before," Jamie replied. "You got any advice where we might pick up that kind of tech, what kind of software we'd need, or what else we might use them for? We wondered – we thought maybe we could touch Mr. Delamont for whatever sources he might have gotten out of his son. He offered to help, but I don't know how deep that runs."

"If Mr. Delamont made an open offer like that, he will keep it," Augustus says flatly. "But it means he trusts you not to fire that one shot unless you need it. Save it for now. I can do you one better. After we pressed on li'l Dougie Delamont some, we learned all kinds of useful shit about those toys. I got six of my own now that I've been playing with here on site. Just been waiting for a chance to try them out in new situations."

"Really."

"Mm hmm. I'm thinking maybe we can help each other out a little. I need to document the actual recording and Wi-Fi range on each one, and how much juice different payload weights actually cost to carry over distances. Military level field test reports that I can turn around and sell as a contractor, so soldiers can include the specs in equipment requisitions. Drones can save innocent lives as much as bring down hell from a distance, but only if the right people get their hands on them. I want to test out the voice-activation settings and see how long they can hibernate before running dry. Everything tested both out-of-the-box and a few months old. And if it means keeping your asses safe, well, that's good too. I want you both back to help out at Jam next winter."

Each of their cars now has an audio-video recording micro-camera, carefully dissected from its drone housing, mounted behind the fabric just over the rear windshield, looking forward over the front seats. A black unit hidden behind black fuzzy fabric with only a quarter-inch hole is nearly impossible to see unless you're looking for it. No doubt a professional would know what to look for, but if you were just trying to pop the doors quickly to get under the hood, or if you were checking for the usual car alarm or immobilizer, you probably wouldn't look up there.

They've also flown and parked camera-bearing drones into dark corners of their parkades, tucked between concrete and low-hanging pipes and wire channels. Though far less legal than the cameras in their personal cars, the drone-cams are powerful enough to let them identify the faces and cars of anyone coming or going through the main gate and the internal doors of the parkades.

The cameras have a battery life of approximately eight total hours of data recording once they have been motion- or voice-activated. He and Eddie have tested different angles of approach and different volume levels of speaking, and they've found that even walking in front of the cars or alongside a door will wake them up. Even a whisper inside, or a normal voice outside, will wake up the microphones. They each have a new dedicated laptop, locked in their gun safes in their apartments, to receive any live recordings instantly and sent alerts to their phones, just like any security webcam system.

Of course they had to tell Frank about their concerns and countermeasures, especially regarding Pascal and Sergeant Foster. He'd listened in grim silence, and agreed it was a wise precautionary move. He didn't promise to cover them if they were sued for illegal espionage. He didn't apologize for the position he'd put them in, ask how they were coping, or confirm they were still up for the task, and they hadn't expected him to. They seemed to have moved beyond that into a state of acceptance that, family trauma or not, the reality was bigger than that.

Frank had agreed that they couldn't legally place microphone drones anywhere in such a tightly restricted office space as the One PP, which had its own anti-surveillance measures in place anyway. He did promise to try to find out if Pascal, Frosty, Boucher or Vance appeared to meet anywhere offsite, which might prove amenable to a surveillance warrant. Jamie hasn't heard anything more about that.

Their week at the John Jay College, learning about the current street drugs, their routes of delivery into New York, and the evidentiary requirements of undercover testimony was like cop summer camp, in comparison to the harsh physical training and squalid subject material they've been ingesting at work. They got to sit among colleagues and not beat anyone up, and they didn't once feel eyes in the back of their necks.

They got to catch up with old friends from different houses, including his old Academy buddy Tariq, once trapped in an endless undercover role that he was simply too good to extricate from – career death by competency, Tariq said – but now happily settled at JTTF. Tariq had begged Jamie to come and bring his legal background and undercover experience to the task force. Jamie promised he'd keep in touch and keep it in mind. He could do far worse for his next major career leap after this.

It's good to feel there might be _something_ else after the Templar beehive is all smoked out, he thinks. Markhum was right. The mental state they approach the job with is half the battle, and they let themselves get truly exhausted and demoralized.

"You done?" asks Frank, cutting into his thoughts. He is indeed. The herbs are chopped fine, the lemons are squeezed, the egg yolks are beaten, the butter cubed into surgically precise half-inches so they'll ease into the warm sauce at a predictable rate.

All the while, Frank and Eddie have been chatting about the Resurrection as a psycho-spiritual allegory of rebirth and awakening rather than a historical event. Frank is expounding on what the various gospels say, and how he himself was trained to interpret them. Eddie is suggesting more plausible postmodern explanations for the three-day death and disappearance of a young hippie rabbi. They're having a marvellous time and not agreeing on a single thing.

But now it's Danny's turn to come in and carve the ham while Frank gets the sauce underway.

"Oh, good," Eddie says, "My feet are killing me. I should've changed out of this rig right away."

"You should take lessons from Baez," Danny says. "Only female detective I know who actually _likes_ wearing high-heeled boots all day."

"Yeah, well, if I get to wear plainclothes to work after all this, I might get used to a bit of extra height, too."

"You know where they send all the good-looking lady cops on Undercover work," Danny points out. "You got the thigh-high stilettoes ready?"

"Danny!" Frank, Jamie and Eddie retort, in varying pitches, their exasperation not mitigated in the least by the fact that they all know he's right.

Danny grins and slings back his cold longneck brew for a swallow.

Easter brunch with his ridiculous family is exactly what they needed, Jamie thinks.

* * *

This Easter, everyone has a glass of wine with brunch, even Sean, though he doesn't really like it and only pretends to take sips for toasts. Jamie knows Sean's more of a beer guy, but he's not telling Danny that. Jack keeps a pretty good eye on his little brother, and if there are after-hours hijinks at boarding school, Sean won't want to risk his scholarship.

"Everyone raise your glass, please," Pop says, as soon as grace is over. "Let's see now. To the most recent football star of Valley Forge Military Academy and winner of the Mayor's Medal of Excellence. And also to our soon to be latest _summa cum laude_ , and the third highest scoring applicant out of ninety-six on the spring NYPD Academy intake exam."

Nicky chirps: "Hey, how do you know how I – "

"Shush. And to our soon to be most recent high school graduate, who I gather also has something to announce."

Pop looks at Jack expectantly. Everyone but Danny blinks in surprise, and Jack blushes deeply. Jamie knows that the Ivy League schools haven't sent out their acceptance letters yet, so…

"I, uh, you remember the thing with the festival and rescuing Marjolaine?" he begins, fiddling with the stem of his wineglass.

"We could hardly forget," Frank replies. "What new development has come of _that_?"

"Well, you remember Sergeant Clare said she'd waive the fees for any of us to do the Police Cadet Summer Program out in Montauk, if we wanted to? I've been thinking about it since then, and I talked to Dad and Sergeant Clare, so instead of looking for work this summer I'm gonna do that. I can bunk up with a couple other cadets out there in a beach house belonging to one of their families. 'Cause – I definitely need to go to college, but it'll be good to have that experience to hold onto. And if it goes well, Sergeant Clare thinks they'll be able to find paid summer office work for me until I graduate. I'm still applying to schools nearby, but I'm told I have a good chance for at least a partial ride to Columbia or Harvard or Princeton, too. So I might actually be all set for the next few years. Hopefully I'll know more really soon. Letters go out in a couple weeks."

There's a momentary stunned silence, and then a spontaneous outburst of applause and chatter.

Jamie leans back in his chair and hollers with everyone else. He's so proud he feels like he could burst. He can only imagine how Danny's feeling. He doesn't have to imagine how Jack's feeling, because he remembers announcing his own full ride to Harvard at the same age. Even if it's a stiffer than usual competition year for the Ivy Leagues, Jack's almost certain to get an acceptance, if not a partial or full ride, and with his grades and extra-curriculars – including the Police Cadet program – he's all but guaranteed a full ride closer to home.

He thinks Jack will probably start in on his formal NYPD application before starting his fourth-year term papers.

He wonders how Tasha factors into all of this, or if it's too early to tell. They've been friends their whole lives, whatever else they turn out to be. Jamie knows what a comfort and a powerful source of inspiration that can be, but also how devastating when things go south.

Jack beats him to it, adding: "Tasha's, um, applying to the same schools, but we're gonna try to find ways of keeping in touch wherever we end up. Nowhere's that far away, not anymore, and we have Facetime and things now."

"Well," Frank beams into his moustache, "That's the young people all dispensed with. Has anyone else got anything to announce?"

He, Eddie, Erin and Danny all glance among each other and shrug.

"Nope," Danny says, "The younger generation has us beat hollow this year. Oh, I guess I wrote recommendations for a few of my team to move up a level or two, but that's on them, not me."

"Abetemarco's kept his blood pressure below aneurysm level for two weeks, so that's a tick for my office," Erin sighs, "But that's got more to do with his doctor putting a scare on his salt and steak intake when he got himself landed in hospital."

"Oh, great, lemme take him out to lunch and I'll take care of that," Danny smirks.

"Eddie and I have had a pretty smooth week," Jamie shrugs. "No black eyes, no bruises."

"I, ah, I didn't _actually_ deck Uncle Jimmy to the ground," Danny remembers. "He got into it up to his neck, again, but he found a way out of it. This time."

At that, Frank sighs and the boys look a little pensive. They liked Linda's brother even if they were nervous of him, and they never actually wished the guy any harm. It was his own fault for getting in so deep with the Albanian mafia, of all people.

Eddie's quiet, too. She's heard little bits of the saga, and it reminds her sharply of the ease with which the Russians and Hungarians marked her own father as easy prey for their own uses.

"What a year," Frank says quietly. "Well. To Linda."

"To Linda." Everyone raises their glass.

"To Mom and Grandma," Danny responds.

"To Joe," Jamie says.

"To absent friends," Erin says next.

"May we be reunited in the fullness of time by the grace of God," Pop finishes.

There's a small silence, filled with memories and nods and complex smiles, and then the sound of cutlery and dishes being passed takes over. Frank presides over the tureen of Hollandaise, keeping warm in a water-bottomed chafing set, Danny set up plates of English muffins and ham and sides, and Erin spoons up steaming fluffy mounds of Fisherman's Pie as the plates go around.

"I'm gonna go see Dale up in Boston after graduation, I think," Nicky chooses that moment to muse out loud. Erin pauses in her scooping.

"You think?"

"Well, he invited me. And it's probably the last time we'll have a chance to see each other in person for who knows how long, with his summer tour schedule and my work and training."

Erin's content to leave it at that.

* * *

Walsh and Patimkin's eyes have grown wider by the minute as Eddie recounts what she can, within the limits of confidentiality, of the last month of training she and Jamie have endured. They've barely touched their drinks since she started in, though that's not a bad thing since they're on Round Three already.

They're at their old table in Harper's, in the cone of quiet between the hockey game on the wall-mounted TV screen and the four pool tables at the back. With their hair loose, jackets slung over their chairs and booted feet tapping in time with the music, they could be any trio of thirtysomething women blowing off steam after a late gym class on a holiday Monday, but this is as serious an intelligence meeting as they've ever held in the office, and they're coming down off an advanced kickboxing workout.

The Bushmills helps, though, Eddie thinks, pausing to take a sip.

"I like to think I'm pretty tough," Walsh says seriously, "but you, girlfriend, are literally a weapon now."

"Am I?" Eddie considers. It's not like Walsh to be casual about something so serious as violence and personal safety. "I'm not sure I like the idea of being a weapon. I'd rather just be tough. But I guess, yeah. The training goes pretty damn deep. I think if I had to keep it up at that level, working in deep cover for a few months, it'd get into my mind as well. I feel like I'm walking on the edge of that. We're getting our first field assignments soon, so I guess we'll see."

"Do you get to choose between assignments at all?" Patimkin asks. "It's something I've had at the back of my mind, too. Undercover work, I mean."

"I doubt we get to choose much. Actually, you should start putting it out there that you'd be interested in a shot with Undercover. At least the non-shitty variety. You'd do well in public space crime prevention, like downtown or in the museums. You still look more like an art dealer than a cop, out of uniform."

Patimkin laughs heartily. "I'm taking that as a compliment, considering the hash I made out of being IAB's pet mole," she says, shaking back her long strawberry hair. It's true. She has a startlingly innocent face, out of a medieval painting. In a form-fitting black turtleneck, slim black dress pants and a one-of-a-kind jacket in patches of burned velvet and silk and denim, she looks like she's fresh off a gallery tour.

"I never properly apologized, by the way," says Eddie, "For the sign. The mole thing. I'm sorry about that."

"Sign..." Patimkin shakes her head. "Lost me."

"On your duty jacket," Eddie mumbles into her glass, "The toxic hazard symbol."

"Oh, jeez. That was you? I totally pegged that on Kelsey! She's the one who hated me on sight, as soon as I joined the one-two."

"Kelsey the screamer?" Walsh asks, "The one with all the hyperdrama and patrol car sex with her partner?"

"That one," Patimkin agrees. "Oh, man, now _I_ feel bad. I seriously thought that must have been her. I mean, I never brought it up, but I sure hit her with the stinkeye."

"If you assumed that, it's only 'cause she deserved it," Walsh opines. "Outing you as IAB would have been totally her style. You," she nods at Eddie, "were just sore about Brenda here getting your boy in trouble, and you knew nobody would suspect ambitious little old you."

"Well…yeah. And I'm still sorry. Wait. Patrol car sex?" Eddie asks, amused. "Who got that confession out of her?"

"Voluntary statement," Walsh says, taking a sip and gesturing broadly with her highball glass. "Kelsey got punted to the two-five after another round of civilian complaints about her and Jason parked on the street yelling at each other the car for like ten minutes. So when she came to pack up her gear, she was still sore at Jason – both for yelling at her, and for not taking the fall and stepping up to get transferred. She told us e-e-everything," Walsh rolls her eyes. "and then probably went to jump him one last time in the men's change room."

"Ha! Someone actually did that? And after all the house talk, Jamie and I never so much as kissed on duty, not in the house, not in our car…" She trails off, remembering that _one_ outstanding kiss while they were still technically on plainclothes duty, lost inside their parallel universe for a brief stolen moment. "So are Kelsey and Jason still screaming at each other?" she finishes casually.

"In more ways than one. Jason's partner says they still text, like, _all day_ , but at least we don't have to hear them anymore," Walsh sighs.

"So. Your mole over here has dug up some good stuff," Patimkin says then, into the brief lull. She sits up straight and wraps her fingers around her glass. "Remember I said I'd ask some of the IAB admin staff about Sergeant Frosty and what he was up to?"

"Hey, yeah. What'd you find?"

No need to mention that Jamie had seen Frosty looking all friendly with Sergeant Pascal, watching their fight practice.

"Well, you remember I said it sounded too easy that he'd just let Renzulli sign you both over to Undercover, instead of launching an IAB investigation over those festival photos?"

"Those _fucking_ photos," Eddie grumbles. "Yes?"

"Right. I figured he probably just wanted to do you both a favor, and Renzulli too, you know, to keep you in his pocket until he wanted something from you. That would fit in with what I know of him."

"Okay. Makes sense."

"So I had drinks with Mandy, one of the admins over there, over Christmas, and she said she had this weird little feeling that Frosty was more than just happy about having one over on you guys. That it was something personal. She couldn't tell me any more than it was just a hunch, maybe something in his voice or a look on his face when she overheard him telling Sergeant Estevez about it after. Estevez just shrugged and said it didn't sound like any sort of issue for IAB in the first place."

"Estevez. What's he or she do?"

"He's a he. Approves unit expenses, actually. Rubber stamp detail."

"Huh. Okay." That's got Eddie's attention. Her university training and her first career, after all, were all about following investment money trails to see where they led, whether in researching the past or predicting the future. This is territory she knows.

"So that didn't give me much to do on, until I finally managed to get my friend Tanisha away for lunch a couple weeks ago. She actually works for Estevez, so she knows all the expense claims and cash outlays. I asked her if Frosty had had any requests denied dating back to November, and she just about fell over. Turns out that Frosty had brought in two of the specialist TARU A/V techs, McKenna and Chan, for a whole Sunday in late November, with overtime, just to go over the social media posts of the festival and to pull any photos of you and Reagan."

"Huh. We knew they must've worked the Sunday, 'cause we got a bunch of e-mails that afternoon," Eddie recalls. She looks up guiltily at Walsh. "I couldn't tell you anything till we'd talked to Tony and everything was settled."

"Heartbreaker," Walsh retorts. "Well, go on. Did Frosty get his overtime reimbursed?"

"Nope. Denied. He was livid. He came in and actually raised his voice to Estevez, and asked him if he really wanted to be on the wrong side when it all came down."

There's a pause as they take this in.

"Wait. An NYPD Sergeant asked another Sergeant if he wanted to be _on the wrong side_ of not reimbursing a video tech's overtime claim? That doesn't make any sense. It's not like we were about to be splashed across the nation's TV screens breaking the law in uniform. Or that our civilian techs are underpaid. That'd be a union issue."

"That's what got Tanisha curious. There was no urgent reason to call anyone in on a Sunday for a few photos of you guys being, you know, you. So it was already rattling around in her head when I asked. She went back and ran some queries – which she's supposed to do, especially at year end, so she could just say she was getting started on the reconciliation – and she found that Frosty has a pattern of bringing techs in overtime on special weekend projects while nobody else is in the office. And when she pulled McKenna and Chan's overtime pay sheets, they _weren't_ originally about you two and the photos. They were coded for a different side project of Frosty's. They were asked to review the photos later in the day, since they were _already there_."

"Doing what?" asks Eddie. They're drawing closer to something, but she can't see the shape of it yet. Certainly Frosty's involved in something deeper and longer-lasting than they thought. And what does it have to do with Pascal? Were they really standing watching she and Jamie together, or did they just happen to be passing by at the same time, two Sergeants with high-level business that could easily bring them to the One PP?

"The code tracked back to a regular pattern of overtime work, every two or three Sundays. He'd bring in different techs to do audio or video analysis, transcriptions, photo or document analysis. Tanisha doesn't have access to the actual files he was working on, only that same cost center code and which techs' overtime his unit was reimbursed for out of IAB general expenses."

"Well, what's the cost center code for?" Eddie asks.

"Just Special Projects and Miscellaneous Expenses."

"Not to an ongoing IAB operation, or special overtime due to extenuating circs?"

"Nope."

"Huh."

"Yeah. What does that tell you?"

"Besides that he's trying to bury something in plain sight, making it look like legit work? I have no idea. It sounds like Tanisha has access to which techs claimed overtime on which days?"

"Yeah, far as I can tell. They have to bill the department for overtime, it's not automatic salary."

"Okay. That's good. That's useful. I've heard of McKenna. Danny Reagan calls her the Red-Headed TARU Tech. Her specialty is isolating and cleaning up video and still images."

"So what images was she working on that day in November, before she was told to go dredge Twitter for you guys?" Walsh enunciates slowly.

That's the burning question. They three of them trade looks, feeling the same frisson of excitement in their fingertips.

"I bet she'd remember, and she'd definitely have a file of her overtime claim to remind her," Eddie says. "Maybe I can get Danny to just casually request her to check over some old video, before it's sent to Archives, just to make sure they haven't missed anything, and he could get her talking. Too clunky?"

"A bit, but if anyone can pull it off, Danny could." Walsh says.

"Baez even better," Eddie realizes. "Okay. This could work." She tosses back the last large sip of whiskey and considers another. _Yes_ , she thinks, swing her leg out from under the table and getting to her feet. "My round. We have a bit more work to do."

Walsh and Patimkin think it's all just a bit of intrigue to unravel the mystery of why Frosty was so bothered about herself and Jamie – especially Patimkin, who is still a little bitter at her treatment by IAB. Which is true, Eddie thinks, but that's just the tip of the iceberg, and she needs a moment to herself.

She remembers Frank's words, that it wasn't entirely Sergeant Renzulli's idea to have them seconded to the Undercover unit. Frank planted the seed in Renzulli's mind. He was already foreseeing the day when he'd send them undercover, on his own behalf. He'd had the transfer paperwork ready before Frosty arrived on Monday morning. How far in advance had Renzulli prepared for their transfers? Only since their call on Sunday morning, as he'd hinted?

Renzulli had told them that Undercover had asked for her and Jamie personally, for over a year. Possibly encouraged strongly by Frank, Eddie realizes. With overtures like that, there would have been a paper trail of e-mails or phone calls, or even shared lunches. Could Frosty have somehow known that, and just been waiting for a chance to discredit them before they could be seconded to Undercover, away from their familiar safe nest at the one-two?

What does that have to do with the secret weekend analysis of evidence from various files?

And how, she wonders again, is Sergeant Pascal, who makes no secret of not being a fan of Frank, fit into the scheme?

She's walking back to the table with three more whiskeys in hand, watching Walsh and Patimkin's easy conversation together, and she thinks how lucky she is to have made friends with them. They could easily have despised each other. She and Walsh were both known as the tough girls of their houses before Walsh arrived at the one-two. Walsh came laden with a reputation for throwing her partner under the bus, and disloyalty was the worst sin for a rank and file officer. Eddie in particular has always been sensitive to disloyalty, with her family, and if it hadn't been for Jamie, she'd probably never have given Walsh a second chance. Or Patimkin, doing penance as an IAB mole and miserable to the point of dangerous distraction on the job.

But here they are, her two best girlfriends in the house, who she misses terribly.

She thinks idly of Walsh half-flirting with her, that Monday in November when the teams were shuffled and she and Jamie were seconded to Undercover. She remembers how slimy and cold Maldonaldo was to her, and how she and Walsh joked about making out right in front of him to send him around the bend.

 _Maldonaldo_.

Her heart stutters and she feels momentarily lightheaded. She doesn't know how she knows it, but she knows it's true.

Somehow he's connected to the whole picture. Frosty, the Templar, Joe Reagan, all of it. He's been there for twenty years. He's seen everything that comes through the doors of the one-two. Next to Renzulli, who's always been their protector, Maldonaldo is the next person who knows every single arrest they've made and every call they've been sent out on from the house. He told her to her face he'd been watching them for a long time. And he was furious that she would no longer be within his reach.

She'd thought he was being a misogynistic prick who just like to feel in control of female officers. And maybe that's true, but he was also just plain angry and upset that she was leaving.

Escaping him.

No longer under his eye.

 _Who was he reporting to?_ Frosty, or Pascal, or both?

"You okay?" Walsh asks her, as she sets the three glasses on the table, sloshing the whiskey within them as her hand jerks a little. "Come, sit down. Didn't you eat anything before?"

"Yeah, no, I'm fine," she says. "Just putting thoughts together. I, ah, I may have more to tell you two about all this. I have to run it by Jamie first, see what he thinks. We'd hate to get you in any trouble."

 _Especially if it means triggering Maldonaldo's anger against them_ , she thinks.

"Janko," Walsh sighs, "How many times I gotta tell you? I always got your back."

Patimkin doesn't have to say a word. Her admiration and desire to help are right there all across her face.

Eddie feels an upwelling of gratitude for them both, and clinks her glass wordlessly against theirs.

 


	19. Chapter 19

_Oh, goodness gracious! I can’t believe how long this busy/dry spell has dragged on. Between School, New Job, Life and being somewhat burned out by spackling holes in the last few episodes of the season, the realtime chronology of this thing is now three months delayed. The Detours hit a detour. (I know, so meta.) I do plan to catch up if I can!_

_We resume our story in mid-April, two weeks after Easter. Eddie is extremely impatient with me, so I will let her begin…_

*** *** ***

“I feel like one of those unknown authors,” Eddie says, “The ones who have entire handwritten novels found in their tiny little garret apartments after they die, and all the neighbours say they were always so quiet and kept to themselves.”

She’s eyeing the pile of small paperback journals that is slowly taking over the safe in the Reagan’s library. Beside her, Jamie flips quickly through his latest notebook, and eyes her sidelong, but only because she’s not far off the truth. Satisfied with the week’s observations from his days at the One PP, he wraps a plain white sticker around the open edge of his current notebook to seal it, and takes the pen Eddie offers to initial both sides where the sticker meets the cover. Lastly, he pinches thumb and index finger over both sets of initials, and carefully releases them.

What felt like an overdrawn parlour drama at first, all this meticulous covering of bases and planting of booby traps, travelling separately to work, filming their cars and parkades and apartment doors and windows, has become a standard weekly routine. In fact, the security habits of many undercover operatives are far more obsessive. All they’re doing, really, is marking and monitoring their territory. Between the stickers, the initials and their fingerprints, if the notebooks are ever brought out and subpoenaed or otherwise acquired, it will be very obvious if they have been opened unofficially. Meanwhile, they are well guarded in the wall safe behind the sliding bookcases.

“Not much of a potboiler,” Jamie says. “Dear Diary: Today I got beat up again and learned more about drug, sex and gun trafficking in my own city that I ever wanted to know. I think, though I can’t be sure, that the café across the street may be reporting on my caffeine habits to persons unknown. But I am a lethal weapon now and I think I could take down a twenty-three year old barista.”

“Ha!” Eddie says. “We do have one scrap of information we didn’t have before. Officer Patimkin came up with a solid lead,” she summarizes for Frank, keeping her voice low. “But only because she has some rough history with Sergeant Foster, and warned us to keep an eye on him. Her friend Tanisha is a Finance clerk at IAB. She said he’s had his unit reimbursement denied for having TARU scouring social media for us during the Montauk festival. And it sounds like he’s had some issues with bringing other techs in on special weekend work for some off-book project of his. We don’t know if it’s anything to do with the Templar, but he certainly went after us with some kind of agenda.”

Frank, replete with pot roast dinner and the knowledge that his family is safe under his own roof for the day, sits in his reading chair listening carefully, with two fingers of Islay and filtered water glinting in a cut-glass tumbler held loosely on the arm of his chair.

The rest of the family appears to have given up on trying to barge into their weekly check-ins or tap them for details. This is mainly Frank’s doing, as he has also been making a point of sitting down regularly with Sean and Jack, as the boys prepare for boarding school and college. Nicky, too, has been soaking up as much cop talk as she possibly can. The kids are all sitting with Henry right now at the dining table, playing checkers. They’ll get their turn with Frank after Eddie and Jamie are through.

It feels a little fragmented, but as Erin has pointed out, they’re all pretty much adults now, and they need to update each of their personal family relationships accordingly, preferably before the kids move away and it becomes that much harder to keep in touch. She didn’t have to add: _and Henry is pushing ninety now_. He’s still in fairly good health, considering, but he is winding down as they watch. His lengthening tired silences and lapses of decade or name are far more difficult to handle than his ribald commentaries on modern political correctness and the shenanigans of his past.

The most difficult transition for Henry was giving up his driver’s license. He has had a heart attack and a series of angina attacks, and he sometimes gets the shakes. His last gift to Linda was to finally follow her professional advice, and not put himself or others at unnecessary risk. Frank has set him up with a deluxe car service, on call day and night, but Henry still prefers to cadge lifts from the Commissioner’s Security Detail when he can. It’s his only door back into his old world, now.

Eddie and Jamie will never tell that they let him drive Silver Belle or the Mustang sometimes, on the afternoons when they take him out for errands or a short walk along the water.

Notebooks stashed and wall safe locked, she helps Jamie get the sliding bookcases moving along their tracks towards each other again. Dickens, Darwin and St. Teresa of Avila meet up in the middle as the magnetic locks click quietly, keeping their counsel in leatherbound silence.

She and Jamie take up their usual positions on the comfy old couch. Jamie does not reach for her hand, nor does she lean into him. They may be in their Sunday jeans and sweaters, but this is a briefing with the Commissioner of Police. They’ve both turned down Frank’s offer of an after-dinner drink, though Eddie’s wondering if she ought to reconsider. A treat would be nice. It’s been a while since she felt any forward movement in her life, and she feels rejuvenated as of late.

The novelty of working undercover as Undercover has worn off, but that’s the nature of the game. Hurry up and wait, learn to be invisible. There’s been no news from her cousins in over a month. She’s no closer to a solution for her father. She’s even plateaued in her workouts, as happens now and then – more often, she observes, the further she gets into her thirties. Her Eastern European farmer genes want her to spend energy on growing babies, not running and fighting. She’s got a stubborn new half-inch of padding over her tummy that won’t go away even after a few weeks of rabbit food and extra kickboxing classes. Jamie’s infatuated with it, greedily tracing her contours and valleys with fingertips and mouth, and occasionally looking broody. Their sex life, at least, has been all kinds of experimental and insanely, sheet-rippingly great, even if it’s in compensation for feeling stuck otherwise.

_Hey,_ she tells herself firmly. _No fantasizing at Sunday dinner._

Eddie has never dealt well with stagnation. Patimkin couldn’t have known what a gift she’d given them, in the sheer relief of feeling something happening, a small gust from a distant window.

In typical Eddie fashion, having come to a point of critical impatience, she’d taken a leap last week at work. Instead of waiting around to be handed her first real assignment with Undercover, she put some solid time into researching her dream project, and threw together a proposal. Sergeant Vance doesn’t seem to have a facial expression for “impressed”, but his appraising, thoughtful glance at her over the pages she handed him, and his promise to take it upstairs, has brought back all her old excitement.

Jamie’s not going to be thrilled, though he’ll support her, if it’s truly what she wants. She had to do something, and just for her, in particular. Most of her life consists of following orders and figuring out what’s best for other people. This is something she can plant her feet in and watch grow.

Her mother is _really_ not going to be thrilled. The first question she asked, after Eddie had explained her switch to Undercover some months ago, was whether Eddie was going to pretend to be “one of those girls” again – a vulnerable young woman, newly arrived in New York from Serbia with stars in her eyes.

Well, yes, but not exactly. Not this time…

She reels in her skittering mind, already ablaze with visions of the girls she could save and the utterly ruthless trafficking in sex, babies and even organs that she could shut down, and turns her attention back to the room.

“Did you tell about Maldonaldo already, or d’you want me to?” she asks Jamie. She still isn’t sure whether to say “your dad” or “the Commissioner”, in these gray-area meetings.

“No, that’s your brainwave. I think you’re right, but you’ve had more run-ins with the guy. You go ahead.”

“Sergeant Maldonaldo?” Frank asks. “The Desk Sergeant at your house?”

“Same one,” Eddie says. “He’s earned himself quite a reputation for…regressive behaviour towards women in general, and women cops in particular. Also women firefighters and EMT’s and lawyers, but especially women cops,” she begins.

“He’s a misogynistic jackass, with all respect for the stripes,” Jamie interjects. Frank merely rolls his eyes tiredly. There’s not a lot he can do with that type, from his position, unless their direct supervisors first drag everyone involved through the dismal checklist from investigation to discipline, from re-training to multiple chances all properly documented. Maldonaldo will have retired by the time anything sticks to him, and he knows it.

“I always assumed that that was the only reason for the way he treated me, and other women. But it hit me the other day that it’s more than that. This is – it’s just a gut feeling, but it’s persistent. Some of the things he’s said, when I look back, make me think doesn’t just enjoy _feeling_ like he has power over people, but that he knows he does, and _wants people to know it._ He’s the one who records every arrest, every callout. Whenever we bring prisoners back to be booked in, or have evidence to be logged in. Say a prisoner says they got roughed up on the way to cells, or evidence walks away. It’s the officer’s word against the Desk Sergeant’s records as to where they were. And then he’s the one reviewing all the file reports before they get sent to the clerks for updating online.”

“You think he’s interfered with operations in any way?” Frank asks. “I assume you’d bring that to Lieutenant Graden or Captain Hollis first.”

“If I had grounds for a complaint against him, I wouldn’t hesitate,” Eddie returns. “No, that’s what I mean by only having gut feelings. He was furious when Jamie and I got moved out of the house. I thought he was just being his usual creepy self. Insinuating I’d earned it on – in personal ways. But it’s not just that. He was blaming me for getting Jamie to leave, not for getting together with him. I started to think, what if he really was watching us all the time, and relaying anything useful to someone higher? Because if that’s true, then when Jamie left, Sergeant Maldonaldo would have lost access to a major target that any remaining Templar, or anyone out to make trouble for _you_ , Sir, would pay good money to find dirt on.”

She meets Frank’s shrewd gaze and regrets turning down the offer of a drink. Frank looks over to Jamie and raises an eyebrow, inviting his input.

“He’s always acted like he blames everyone else, especially higher-ranked women, for his career stalling out at Desk Sergeant,” Jamie says bluntly, “So we’ve always passed off his weirdness as being just that. Everyone figures he’s a dinosaur, he’ll retire soon. But as soon as Eddie said that maybe it was bigger than that, I got it. I didn’t know how I missed seeing it. I actually wonder now if he uses that persona for a mask, so nobody looks too much deeper. And actually, it made sense of some of the things he’s said to me over the years. He knows the heartbeat of the entire place. He’s seen everything in the house for almost thirty years. And looking back, he’s made hints that, if I were into conspiracy theories, I’d think maybe he was trying to get me to open up about Joe’s death. He sure tried to praise him to the skies when I was new. I thought he was trying to be friendly in some, I dunno, socially-inept way, till Tony shut him down and pulled me away.”

“Did he now,” Frank murmurs. Eddie’s not sure if he means Maldonaldo or Tony, but it doesn’t matter.

“Patimkin and Walsh already keep notes on every interaction with him,” she says, “All the women there do. We look out for each other around guys like that.”

“I’m glad you do. I wish you didn’t have to. I’ll see if Detective Baker can assemble a dossier on this Maldonaldo without alerting anyone.”

“She can do anything,” Jamie states. Frank lets out a smile and raises his glass to the absent Abigail.

“Yes, she can. Now, a while back you told me your trainers were going to be lecturing on police corruption and whistleblower cases. Have they got round to that yet?”

“Yep. Sergeant Vance went over the whole 70’s cowboy-cops scene, the Knapp Commission, the original Blue Templar and other police fraternity organizations.” Jamie says. “He spoke of the Templar like it was a thing of the past. Almost like he wished there was something to replace it, but, you know, before it went rotten.”

“How did that strike you?” Frank asks.

Eddie feels a surge of annoyance. Frank doesn’t sound the least bit fatherly, or even concerned with his younger son having to sit quietly and hear about the organization that killed his older brother and best friend, and nearly killed _him_.

“I don’t think I broadcast anything,” Jamie replies, matching his father’s tone, somewhat pointedly. That’s what Frank’s really asking. “I didn’t say much, but that’s not unusual. No one there should’ve had any reason to think I’d connect Joe with the Templar. Officially, I still believe he died in a drug bust gone wrong. If they thought I’d react at all, that’d be a tell. So I was just watching to see if anyone was watching _me_.”

“So was I,” Eddie says, “And I didn’t see anyone even glance at him.”

“Was anyone absent that was normally in that class?”

“No…wait. Sergeant Boucher joined about an hour in, but that’s not unusual. He’s the physical combat trainer and doesn’t need to know what we’re being lectured on. Sergeant Vance did all the front-of-room talking.”

“What did he say exactly?”

“He mostly talked about historical police corruption. Stolen evidence, trafficking in seized cash, guns and drugs – whole lotta cocaine and AKs came into the Port Authority and vanished in the ‘80s. before that other Reagan cracked down on Noriega and the Colombian cartels,” Jamie explains. “Lot of working girls forced to act as informants-slash-hookers-on-standby if they couldn’t make bail. He covered some stuff I hadn’t heard much about – the calls for the National Guard or even the Army to take over policing the city until a new police force could be set up. Vance said he thought Knapp was useful in the beginning, but mostly a public relations exercise by the end. Back then, the only thing that could rein in the NYPD was the NYPD itself, unless it was bulldozed. And short of the National Guard, the Army and the FBI all working together – which would never happen; can you imagine? – there wasn’t anything else nearly strong enough. So the Blue Templar and a few other societies were supposed to clean up the force but keep the dirty laundry out of sight, behind the Blue Line. And it worked for a while, but of course it went sour, because policing the police is…and after that, the class didn’t really touch on modern police corruption. We all know it’s still there.”

“I know it,” Frank rumbles heavily. “I don’t mind telling you, I will never be easy about keeping my mouth shut over many things I’ve witnessed. And yet if I hadn’t, I would have been pushed out too, and I wouldn’t be here in a position to do anything about it. It’s one of the reasons I haven’t resigned my commission yet.”

“I think it’s time we brought Danny into this,” Jamie says, seemingly at random, though Eddie knows he’s picked his moment. His voice is even, without inflection, but he watches his father carefully.

At first, Frank seems not to react. He holds Jamie’s eyes as if waiting for his full argument. Jamie waits him out.

Then, softly, with a crack in his voice that Eddie has never heard, Frank asks: “Do you know what it will do to him? My putting his only remaining brother at risk like this? I’m hardly unaware of what I’ve asked you to take on. I have every intention of pulling you out at the first sign of serious danger. Whatever actions I take based on the intel you bring in are on me and only me. But I could say that to him a dozen times over, and all he would hear is “Templar” and “brother”, and very likely manifest PTSD symptoms again.”

Frank is conveniently forgetting that he himself approved the not-entirely legal video surveillance drones that are watching over her and Jamie’s cars and apartment cellar parkades, Eddie thinks. He approved them for a reason. Hard evidence of an attack is the next best thing to preventing one.

“Do you know what finding out _later on_ will do to him? Or hearing from someone else?”

At this Frank shakes his head, but slowly and sadly.

Eddie looks from Jamie to Frank, praying her sense of Reagan-timing doesn’t fail her now. “There’s a logistical reason, too,” she ventures softly, “If we’re hoping to get any information from Foster’s office about Detective McKenna. Danny and Maria need to know she’s been working OT for Foster, and he’s probably tried to get small pieces of intel out of her now and then, about the five-four, or just about Danny and Maria. Letting them know that she might need friendlies of her own to rely on would give them a role to play. I bet she’d talk to them about what sort of work she’s doing for him, any hunches she had, or maybe even work she’s turned down, if she knew she could trust them.”

“That,” Frank says, swirling the dregs of his drink, “Would create a de facto task force comprised of my two remaining sons, both their partners, and a technical expert who never asked to be put into that position. I’m not saying no, understand. But once this gets beyond us three, there will be no stopping it, and I won’t be able to protect you by denying you were anything but two officers taking advantage of a golden career opportunity in Undercover.”

“Maybe we need a contingency timeline,” Jamie suggests. He leans forward and outlines his thoughts with his hands as he talks. “First we need to find out what Foster originally had McKenna and Chan doing back in November, the day of the festival, when he got them both hunting us down on social media. We know Tanisha has access to payroll, but not necessarily the contract details. Depending on what we learn, we may or may not ask McKenna to be eyes and ears at IAB whenever she’s called in on weekends in future. Then, if it turns out that we’re right and McKenna and Chan have gotten sucked into something that might involve the Templar at all, in any way, _then_ we tell Danny and Baez.”

“We don’t _know_ Sergeant Foster is involved with the Templar resurgence,” Eddie reminds them, “And we have only impressions about Sergeant Maldonaldo. But there’s something going on.

Frank looks between them, a small smile hovering finally.

“Feels good to finally get some traction, doesn’t it?” he says. “I think the fact that it’s taken this long to make any real headway is a sign of how careful the remnants of this group is being, and how quiet they’re willing to be. My intel still believes that there are two or three active members of the Templar are active Undercover officers in some capacity, but we don't know how many more, or where. Eddie, if this Tanisha is in any doubt of her clearance to collect and deliver information that indicates _any_ criminal activity of IAB officers, please give her my assurances that I myself will accept it. I can ensure her job security, and we will see to her personal security if she feels it necessary. Believe me, I’m quite aware that the administrative staff are essentially the Internet of the NYPD. They see everything and they know everything. If I – ”

There is a discreet tap on the door just then, and Nicky’s voice outside. “Grandpa? You guys ready for dessert? Pop’s just put some coffee on.”

“Absolutely,” Frank calls back. “We’re just chatting.”

He throws back the last swallow of his whiskey, shakes his head with gusto at the burn, and pushes himself up from his chair. For a large man, he moves with surprising speed. Walking behind the couch, he touches both of their heads in a sort of benediction, and throws open the library door before she and Jamie even get up.

*** *** ***

The chattering of Jamie’s subconscious, which has a life of its own on a good day, gets more difficult to ignore with every subway stop on his way to work on a damp and blustery Monday morning.

_Eddie seemed preoccupied this morning._

Of course she is. They’re getting their first big assignments today, out in the field after ten weeks of training that made Academy seem like middle school.

_Eddie seemed like she wanted to be alone._

That’s not unusual. They spend the vast majority of their time together. They need space now and then, especially when getting their heads back into the work week. They’ve come to appreciate commuting independently to work. It helps them transition from mostly-spouses to workmates, and it’s useful to commute home separately after a difficult day, before reconnecting.

_Eddie’s not telling you something._

Wait, what?

Now he’s paying attention. They’ve been doing fine, having hauled each other over a big damn stress-wall last month. It won’t be the last or by far the worst. As with their whole partnership, they learn, they move on. They’re on the same page in general, and are now just itching to get to work in their real jobs, apart from the extra covert observations for his father.

_Eddie wants to tell you something and she thinks you’ll be upset._

Hm. Possibly?

Okay, he addresses his mind. What is it? He’s fairly certain it’s nothing to do with their relationship, or with him – they’ve been very conscious of clearing the air before things pile up. It’s not good news, because she’s fundamentally incapable of sitting on anything good. She’s definitely not pregnant or waiting to find out. Something to do with her family, perhaps, that she needs to work through before talking about it?

That’s probably it, he tells himself. Though his subconscious drums its fingers and says, _oh, just you wait._

He sighs and sits up in his seat, remembering to note his fellow riders or strange behaviours. On this, his subconscious is pointedly silent. The only familiar face he spots is Lieutenant Flack from the Murder Squad, with whom Danny has worked a case or two. Flack doesn’t really know him, but seems to recognize him vaguely, and nods back before closing his eyes wearily. That figures: Jamie remembers hearing that Flack’s wife, Detective Lovato, was expecting their second kid some months ago.

Fifteen minutes later, he arrives on the sixth floor of the One PP with coffee in hand from his usual stand across the street. Eddie is there already, looking polished and poised in a dove grey skirt suit and a silk blouse in periwinkle blue. She’s talking earnestly with Vance over by the window. Leroy, Flavia and Geoff are sitting at the tables, chatting quietly.

As he moves towards the tables, Eddie turns and glances at him, and then waves, but not before he sees the hitch in her movements. She closes the folder she has in her hand, and comes over to sit at their usual table, as Vance takes the front of the room.

“Good morning, folks,” the gruff voice greets them. “It’s assignment day, which means you’ll be spending today speaking with Sergeant Boucher and myself individually, meeting your new handlers, and starting to research and prepare. One of two of you already know where you’re headed, and the rest will soon find out. As with any police assignment, these are not optional. You go where you’re sent. That said, the same rules apply: if you have a legitimate concern about training, or a conflict of interest, of course you should bring it to us immediately.”

Jamie’s not looking directly at Eddie during this, but they are deeply attuned to each other’s minute movements by now. When Vance mentions that some of the class already knows their assignments, she stiffens up the slightest amount.

_Huh. Okay. We’ve talked about her maybe having to do hooker patrol or something. Is that it? She just didn’t want to bring it up till she’d sorted it out in her head or something?_

No response from his brain.

Vance gives them the briefest outline of all of their new posts, so they can take a minute to congratulate and wish each other luck.

Leroy has scored his dream assignment, posing as a new drug hustler in town looking to start low and work his way up. Despite being nearly thirty and very clean cut normally, after ten weeks of prep he now looks like a scruffy, twitchy kid with hungry eyes and a winning con-artist smile. He’s definitely one of those who knew where he was going, since he’s been prepping for it all along.

Geoff is replacing an officer in an ongoing pawnshop operation. He’ll be posing as a seller, sometimes a buyer, looking to identify shops that do not check and inventory the items they accept, or that fail to report stolen goods to police. It’s solid bread and butter work that will get him home with his kids in time for dinner, and he’s satisfied.

But it’s Flavia, not Eddie, who is being sent on hooker patrol. She’ll participate in a sting on a number of Air B&B’s that they’ve infiltrated as being part of a setup involving elite call girls and drug drops. Instead of the high-class working girl they expect, the johns will encounter exotic-looking Flavia, who will be only too eager to hear about the contents of their briefcases and how they acquired their goods.

“Use it while you got it,” Flavia grins, not at all displeased.

“Next up, Eddie has been researching the sex-trafficking of young Eastern European women to America, and the recruiting of international students and visa workers from those countries into sex work. She’ll be posing as a recruiter herself, working to intercept vulnerable women and rescuing those already caught up in the industry. In particular, she’ll be focussing on three known channels of transport between Serbia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and New York City.”

_Whoa. Seriously…? When did that happen?_

He’s not sure what he expected, but he had assumed she’d do a year or so of solid undercover work, as they’d promised Tony, and then go on to get her gold shield. He’s always seen her as a career patrol cop, highly adept at dealing with citizens and solving cases. An assignment like this is tantamount to getting a permanent berth in a special unit as a subject-expert. Is that what she wants? What is this going to mean for them?

Is it just that they can no longer even pretend to be work-partners anymore, once they’re placed out separately?

Is he just worried about her out there alone, knowing that any Undercover op site might include a Templar member?

Is he just worried about not being nearby if things go south, like last time?

Each thought hits him harder in the gut until it aches.

He barely hears Vance’s next words, which are: “And last but not least, Jamie is going to stay squeaky-clean, for the time being. We need his big brains and legal insight to help us develop a long-term op for disrupting organized white-collar crime. Good luck to you all. Geoff and Eddie, you have meetings in ten minutes with your handlers. Check your online calendars for the room details. Flavia, Boucher is expecting you in his office. Jamie, you’re first with me. Stay behind.”

He nods automatically in response, takes a deliberate sip of coffee and only then looks over at Eddie. She’s watching him with some trepidation.

“It’s not that I wanted to keep anything secret,” she begins quietly, but this is not the time.

They’ve talked about her earlier undercover gig as newly-arrived Serbian girl, but he’d thought it was only a mental exercise, rehashing what worked and what went sideways. It’s what cops do. He doesn’t think he came across as lukewarm or unsupportive, and he can’t think why she didn’t get around to discussing this much larger plan with him.

“Reagan, when you’re ready,” Vance calls.

Jamie gets up and squeezes Eddie’s shoulder briefly as he passes. “We’ll talk later,” he murmurs. “Good luck in your meeting.”

He pulls out the chair cornerwise to Vance’s at the front table, takes a breath, and waits while Vance sorts out some papers, tapping some into a neat stack and putting others back into his folder. As Eddie leaves the room, Vance gives him an assessing glance.

“You two didn’t talk about her research?”

“No, but she didn’t have to. It’s just not like us not to talk about something so big. And it’s a massive project. It’s – it’s a huge break for her. We’ll be fine,” he rambles a little, “Okay, so. White-collar crime. I guess Eddie and I are both getting do-overs.”

“Something like that. Before we start, you should know that we didn’t pull you from the field on purpose. We just need you at a desk more. Your field work and physical training are well on par or above average.”

“I _have_ been feeling kinda old,” he replies, aiming for lightness. Vance barks a quick laugh.

“You haven’t met our real old fellas still working in the field,” he says. “We'll get you back out there, in time. The Sanfino affair is a complicating issue.”

Jamie wonders what Vance means by _affair_ , for a split second, but realizes that it’s just a turn of phrase. He still feels responsible for what went down with Noble, not the least because he finally realized, years later, that the guy was actually falling for him a little. And sure, the instant recognition of some special connection had been mutual, and genuine, even if it was Jimmy Riordan walking the walk. He’d flirted back almost as hard, explaining it to himself as mirroring his mark, as he was trained to do. But that put Noble in even more danger from his mobster family, in the end – firstly, that he hadn’t realized he’d brought a cop right into their midst, and secondly, that he wasn’t even trying to hide a wild crush on a man.

Noble was probably just realizing the truth of his feelings as his life collapsed and he was sent into WitSec. Jamie’s still not a hundred percent on what it was _he_ felt, back then. He put it down to being deep in his cover and left it at that.

“We have to assume that by now, they know that you were the NYPD’s plant, and whose kid you are. We don’t know if you’re on a list somewhere. Most of the adult family, as you know, were convicted of various fraud, gambling and conspiracy charges, but the ones whose resumés weren’t so long will be released soon, or have been already.”

“And you think I _might be_ on a list?” Jamie retorts, forgetting who he’s talking to for a moment. Vance only grunts.

“If we had heard anything, you’d know about it. Until we can be sure, we’re keeping you low-profile. It’s not real thrilling, but it plays to your talents. What we need you working on is optimizing the training and field reporting of our current agents who have already infiltrated white-collar crime. Should we be making more use of technology? Do our agents have the right training? Have they picked up skills they should be teaching us? And how strong is the evidence they bring us - does it stand up in Court? Are we having evidence tossed out, and for what reason? In short, are our eyes and ears giving us a clear picture of the environment, and how can we plan to take advantage of it? You’ll be interviewing field agents, getting to know the OCCB databases, and putting what you remember of the Sanfino family to use as a model of an operation that succeeded for over forty years."

Jamie’s already thinking of Augustus’ drones, and the fact that beyond a certain point, mafia dons and police chiefs become unlikely partners in propping up each other’s businesses.

“Interesting,” he nods. “So it’s back to school with me, again.”

“Hey, like Flavia said – use it while you got it.”

They spend half an hour outlining the various databanks and contacts he can begin with. It doesn’t escape Jamie for a second that this is one more way that they – if there is a “they” – can keep him confined to the house and under their watch, just as Maldonaldo and Frosty seemed to want. For now, though, it’s an assignment he knows he can deliver well, and he doubts anyone will try to harm him directly. If anything, he’ll just have to be circumspect about certain things like his father having steak with various crime bosses as a way of keeping the peace.

He sends Eddie a text afterwards, asking when she’s taking her lunch break, but she’s apparently busy with her meetings. In a bit of a mood, he tries Baker next, checking his father’s schedule. Frank is in and out of meetings all day and can’t predict his lunch, if he gets one at all. No luck there.

It takes him an hour or two, but he realizes that if they’re having to be so careful about being surveilled or followed here, there’s no point in trying to meet up and talk anyway, even if they went somewhere within reach for lunch.

*** *** ***

She does, however, confirm later on that she’ll come over to his place after work.

He gets there first, with soup and sandwiches from their favourite comfort-food place. He even goes to the length of dishing everything up properly and setting the table. He’s just realized he’s pacing when she lets herself in.

She sort of melts, and looks terribly apologetic as she takes in the extra trouble he’s gone to. Hanging up her coat, she comes over to him and slides her arms around his waist, lifting her face for a kiss.

“You really are wonderful,” she says. “We’re fine, I promise. Let me get out of my work things and we’ll talk.”

At least that relieves some of the tension in his stomach. A few minutes later, they’re sitting at his table, feeling more themselves in jeans and sweaters and bare feet.

“I’m more worried about you,” he says. “And I’m not sure it follows that ‘we’re fine’ if you didn’t feel like you could talk to me about something so big.”

Eddie sighs. “Things crept up on me. I didn’t realize it myself.”

“How’d you mean?”

“I mean – this is all still really new to me, being in a relationship this deep. And I don’t know if you Reagans understand how totally you bust down each other’s personal spaces and – and headspace. You said once you guys didn’t do privacy. I’ve seen what that does to you when you’re trying to hash things out in your own head. I think I’m just starting to get that.”

He’s been hovering his spoon over his soup, holding his breath. He give her a go-on gesture, and tucks in.

“I’ve been pretty much on my own since I was eighteen,” she says, after a bite of her pastrami and Swiss. “I mean, I’ve only lived with roommates or by myself since then. I’m not used to having everything on display, having people to talk things through with. Being _expected_ to talk things through. The past few years, I threw everything into making myself over as a cop. And I like it. I feel like I’ve really done something. But now everything’s moving really fast, and I’ve kind of lost track of who I am _except_ a cop. With everything so up in the air with my dad, my cousins, trying to get a better relationship happening with my mom – the only non-cop scenario I feel like I know where my feet are is with you and _your_ family, and that’s still – cop life. You know I love you. You’re my best friend and I love our life together, but I’m getting lost in it.”

_Oh._

For a supposedly smart person, he can be clueless sometimes.

“Yeah, “ he says slowly. “Yeah, we’re pretty overwhelming. And the thing with helping my dad with his – his observations – is a whole other layer neither of us saw coming.”

“Yeah. And I think – it started out that I had this idea, like we talked about, of how I could’ve made more out of the trafficking ring op. And at first, I just liked the idea of having my own dream project, that was my own and nobody else’s. There’s really not much in my life that doesn’t revolve around someone else. And I guess this project does, I mean, it’s my own family history and talking with Bojan that really made it come clear, but it’s something I can do, for me. And for whatever’s left of my family.”

“I get that,” he says. “Really, I do. It’s just sort of funny that here I’ve been trying to get over keeping my thoughts to myself – making sure you know where I’m at, ‘cause God knows my family has chased me into my head.”

“I know, and I love that you keep trying to do that. It’s a balance. We’ll find it. Honestly I didn’t even realize it was getting to me, until I think, Easter. Not just church, but the whole thing.”

That makes sense. “That’s like, every major Reagan tradition coming at you all at once, and a whole lot of family expectations. I thought you were treading water pretty well.”

“I was. But just treading water. Kicking like mad underneath.”

“We do forget,” he says, speaking for his whole family, “How much of a fortress we are. And how difficult it is to resist being assimilated. We-are-Borg, you know. It’s suffocating even if it’s comforting.”

“And I am really, really not used to that. I’m doing my best.”

“There’s parts of it you shouldn’t have to get used to. We have plenty of faults and bad habits. I can see it’d be weird being the non-Reagan trying to resist the tide, though. Like having everything be everyone else’s business. Or feeling obliged to step up for the sake of the family, like, for _any_ reason. Like getting pulled into my dad’s Templar hunt. I’ve often thought it wasn’t really fair of him to ask you, even if it’s a way for us to keep working together, and keep an eyes on each other.”

Eddie’s been shredding her paper napkin out of pure fidget, and she suddenly looks down and realizes it, with a wry look.

“ _All_ of that,” she agrees. “So this thing with wanting my dream project of my own – it was really just a symptom, I think. I kept thinking, ‘What do I really want to be known for, in my career, beyond just being a good cop?’ And it’s partly thanks to you and your family, I have to admit, that I started thinking of what’s actually possible out there. Beyond just being a good cop. And I would be so happy if I could be known for this. Working to take down traffickers, not just rescuing girls from them but doing outreach and educating others on how to spot and avoid them. If becoming a cop was the first big part of getting past my family history, I think carving out my own path in the department is next.”

_Before marriage, before babies, before the whirl of family life takes us both on the next big roller coaster_ , he fills in. She can see that he gets it.

“Going back to Serbia and Croatia in person, and talking to college students there.” He can see this all playing out, now.

“Yeah. Me and Bojan, maybe. We could do some amazing work together, with his police resources and mine.”

“You really could.”

“So, anyway, I’m sorry,” she says. “It was never about keeping secrets. Just holding onto a bit of me.”

“So’m I. I wish I’d clued in sooner.”

There’s a pause that feels like a deep sigh of relief.

“So, more research for you?” she asks. “What can you tell me?”

“What I can tell you right now,” he replies, “is that I am really fucking done with work for today. How about we just curl up and watch something stupid and forget we’re cops for a few hours?”

“Is that even possible?”

“No,” he admits, “But we can pretend.”

“Ooh, what would we pretend to be if we weren’t cops?” Eddie asks him, her eyes brightening.

_That’s my girl_ , he thinks.

*** *** ***

“No Jamie?” asks Patimkin, as Eddie approaches the table. She and Walsh are sitting over a first Friday beer already. With them is a tall, regal-looking black woman in a linen pantsuit of dusty rose and short-cropped natural hair, who has red wine instead.

“He’ll come by later, but not till we’re done,” Eddie tells them, as Walsh shoves a chair at her with the toe of her boot. “He knows better than to try to bust into our sessions.”

“Smart man, Harvard,” Walsh grins. “Eddie, this is Tanisha Gabany, from Frosty’s office. Tanisha, this is Eddie. She’s the one who got us into this whole thing.”

“Nice to meet you at last,” Eddie says. Tanisha’s grip is cool and firm, her fingers as long and precise as the rest of her. She’s so refined that Eddie wonders if they’re going to be able to convince her to join in their clandestine investigation. But then Tanisha smiles, and Eddie sees the mischief dancing in her eyes.

“And you. I promise I’m not wearing a wire,” she gives a low, melodic chuckle. “Get you a drink first, then we’ll talk.”

And talk they do. Tanisha has been a financial clerk at IAB for over ten years, working directly under Sergeant Estevez, who is IAB’s financial comptroller. He doesn’t set the budget, but he’s responsible for keeping the unit within budget, approving or denying claims, or recommending major purchases from time to time. Tanisha, as one of the longest-serving clerks in the department, has watched Sergeant Foster go through a dozen staffers in his own office down the hall, and make lifelong enemies of the ones who remain. He’s a classic micro-managing bully who never gets more than a verbal reprimand now and then, because he delivers meticulously-built, strong cases to IAB, or knows when to cut his losses early and not waste resources. Complaints against him tend to disappear, because who doesn’t complain about IAB tactics, especially when they’re in the hotseat? He’s not the type to sexually harass people – he doesn’t seem to have an interest in such base human interactions – but he expects the kind of computer-like output of everyone around him that he brings to bear on his own work.

“He calls me Radar O’Reilly,” Tanisha rolls the r’s in her rich Caribbean accent, and laughs, “because I bury him under so many spreadsheets before he even asks that he thinks I must be some sort of genius.”

“He’s not wrong,” Patimkin says. “Is there anything you can tell us, you know, about – what we talked about?”

Tanisha’s smile grows more thoughtful. “I’ve raised concerns in the past about payments to a few high-level TARU technicians brought in for weekend overtime work, under general codes like Special Projects and Miscellaneous Expenses. Lately Sergeant Estevez has vetoed some of them, which means he’s not satisfied with the explanation he would have asked for. But as long as a supervisor keeps Special Projects funding under five thousand a year, it is not even usually red-flagged for review. He might have been doing this for years. But those files _could_ still be selected for a random internal audit. I do about six audits per month and forward any concerns to Sergeant Estevez. Then I add the findings to my behavioural analysis of department spending patterns and justifications.”

Eddie knows this language very well, from her past life as a financial analyst. “Please, please tell me you’re the one who picks the files to audit.”

“Of course I do. I wrote my own random number generator for cost centers and file numbers. First I pick five or six cost centers to drill down on, then I pull one percent of the files under each one.”

Eddie wants to throw her arms around Tanisha, but she settles for clapping with glee. “So you can keep rolling the dice until the right number pops up.”

“Wait, wait,” Patimkin protests, “How on earth is that random?”

“Randomized, is probably a better term,” Eddie explains. “The computer is told to randomly pick, say, six cost centers out of the two or three hundred that exist. Then it’s told to pick one percent of the files under each cost center. Instead of flagging every hundredth file in sequential order, which would be predictable, the program starts with a seed value, a random single digit, and then plugs it into an algorithm that re-builds itself each time. There’s no way of really predicting which numbers it’ll spit out, but you can keep running it until it hits the one you want.”

“And if I lose track of how many times I hit the space bar and write down the file numbers – oh, well. There’s not much a supervisor could do but hand over the file. Any file is equally likely to be chosen. And also, if a supervisor was to try to hold back the file, that would be a strong signal that something was amiss. If I ask to audit a file several times and it is not turned over in a reasonable time frame, I am obliged to elevate the request to the next level.”

“So as a numbers guru,” Walsh leans forward over her pint, “Looking at spending behaviour, would you also be obliged to report on any actual work in the file that doesn’t seem to make sense? Or do you only look at the financials?”

“Oh, I certainly would be,” Tanisha says, “If the vendor or contractor has invoiced for something that doesn’t match the cost center, that’s just the first step. I can – in fact, I am supposed to – be the first line of inquiry, and ask for the contractor’s paperwork and instructions. So if, _hypothetically_ , a highly skilled technical officer was brought in at very expensive overtime pay on a Sunday, and the cost center their payment was allocated under was audited, I would be expected to interview that technician. I would first ask when, and for what work, the technician was called in.” Tanisha smiles. “Having said that, my chain of command is first to Sergeant Estevez, who would then ask Sergeant Foster to explain himself. Not that I wouldn’t try to sell tickets to _that_ show. It’s always quite a circus.”

The others can only grin, imagining the scene. “I wouldn’t want you to get in any trouble,” Eddie says. “I should tell you that Commissioner Reagan has said he’ll give you whatever clearance you need to bring information directly to him, and only him. He’ll safeguard your job. And you.”

At this, Tanisha laughs outright. “I’m a paper-pusher in a twelfth-floor office,” she says, “working for a small man with Napoleon Syndrome. I don’t know what these technicians are doing there on their weekends, but I suspect it’s one of those pet projects that people sometimes invest in, hoping the NYPD will eventually purchase it for a nice sum. Then when the call came in about you two having your photographs on social media, he probably needed to justify why he was already in the office, and made it into a whole situation. And then felt obliged to continue the farce.”

“I hope you’re right,” Eddie says. “Honestly, I hope that’s all. But Tanisha – there’s a reason the Commissioner wanted you to know he could protect you. He’s looking into corruption…”

Her voice trails off, but the words have escaped, and she wishes she could take them back. This is the first time she’s spoken of her doubly-undercover investigation. Walsh and Patimkin won’t talk, and Tanisha seems cooler than cool, but up until that moment, their focus was only on a sisterly hunting expedition into why Frosty had come down on her and Jamie so hard.

“Seriously?” asks Walsh.

“You never told us that,” Patimkin looks shocked.

“Ah…”

“We weren’t supposed to hear that,” Walsh intuits quickly. “I didn’t hear anything. Brenda, you hear anything?”

“Hear what?” Patimkin asks, but she’s worried.

“Shit,” Eddie sighs, “Okay. I can’t say much. Well, put it this way – please don’t make me lie to you.”

“We won’t. Only please stay safe. Just tell me, are you and Reagan Junior in this together, at least? Is that why the PC’s on overwatch?”

“Not gonna lie,” Eddie mumbles into her beer. Walsh nods, mollified.

“Stay safe, Janko,” she says. “But remember we can only have your back if we know what it’s up against.”

Tanisha is nodding slowly, holding Eddie’s eyes. She’s no fool, and knows that Patimkin wouldn’t have sought out her help to unravel a mere hunch of office politics.

“I know. And thank you. I don’t want to ask anything of anyone that’ll cause trouble,” Eddie repeats earnestly, to Tanisha. “Honestly, everything we’ve been talking about tonight really is about why Frosty seemed to have a personal stake in Jamie’s and my career movements. Why he was having elite forensic techs trolling social media for us – and _then_ whatever else they were doing. If anything dodgy turns up, we’ll deal with it then. I’ll just say once more: the Commissioner has your back on this, and you can call his office anytime you need.”

“I understand you better now,” Tanisha says levelly. “That old phrase, ‘follow the money’? It’s true. Anyone working in finance long enough sees everything. That’s why even low-level clerks are bound up in confidentiality and NDA’s. Let’s say that at this early stage, if the Commissioner wants to ask me specific questions, I will be happy to answer them. I don’t know what size net he’s spreading.”

“I can take that back to him,” Eddie replies seriously. The two share a look, and then smile, breaking the moment.

_I gotta get Patimkin to understand how amazing she is at winning people’s trust_ , she thinks. _If I hadn’t been moved to give her a chance to show me her real self, if and if she hadn’t built up this unlikely friendship with an older clerk in a different office right across the city, this wouldn’t have happened_.

She and Walsh both glance at the youngest cop at the table, and then over her head at each other, like a pair of proud parents. Patimkin flushes and pulls her beer glass closer, letting her hair fall against her face.

By mutual unspoken consent, the conversation turns to lighter topics.

Patimkin and Tanisha’s friendship goes back to Patimkin’s first months as an NYPD cadet. They had met on a software training course, for police and admins to learn the NYPD’s proprietary records management system. For Tanisha, with six years as an NYPD financial clerk and auditor, it had been a relaxing refresher and an upgrade to the new version. For Patimkin, who had used computers only for basic typing and surfing around, and who was already in a state of constant panic about having omitted critical information on her original department application, the course had been a nightmare.

Tanisha had taken the tearful Patimkin under her wing on the second day and helped her through. While young cops were advised to seek out Rabbis among the higher-ups, to help mentor them along their careers, especially in the beginning, the staffers talked of Office Moms and Office Aunties. It was unusual for the two worlds to cross over, but Patimkin had become a rare example of a rookie with an Office Auntie.

Four years in, Patimkin is less twitchy around fellow cops, but still looks up to Eddie and Walsh as if they’re the cool seniors who let her eat lunch with them. No doubt there are some cops who still disdain her for her entry into cop life as an IAB mole, but Eddie thinks that the tall, wispy-looking Russian is just the type to do something massively heroic one day. Maybe that’s why she was initially put off by her – they both share a need to prove themselves and redeem their families, and they both had to learn how to manage that without inadvertently destroying human connections along the way.

“Hey, Brenda,” she begins, during a pause in the reminiscing. “You still interested in Undercover at all? ‘Cause I got a couple names for you now. Neither of us looks like your typical cop. And people trust you and like you. It’s something to capitalize on.”

“Oh! Yeah, I totally am. Thanks.”

“Not me,” Walsh sighs. “I get made as a cop as soon as walk in a room. Or sometimes I get asked if I play one – that’s always fun. Any decent TV cop would make ten times what I do.”

“ _Forty_ times,” Tanisha corrects. “On average.”

The other three sit back in stunned silence.

“Forty?” Patimkin asks weakly.

“And that’s only television. You don’t want to know what a relative B-lister gets for playing a cop in a blockbuster.”

“Fuck it, I’m calling an agent,” Walsh says, and empties the pitcher into her glass.

Half an hour and two more beers later, Eddie begins to wonder where Jamie is. She reaches for her phone to message him, but finds that it’s been left turned off, and she’s missed a few notifications.

Two texts from Jamie, who is running a little late after night hoops at the community center with Danny, Jack and Sean, but he’s on his way.

One e-mail from her mother, who wants to set up a Skype chat and plan ahead for a Mother’s Day visit to Katonah. (Eddie’s subconscious _immediately_ begins composing and editing her new job description ahead of time.)

And a rather pissy voicemail from Warden McDermott at Fort Dix, who states that Eddie was _supposed_ to have picked up her father for an escorted outing _that afternoon_ , and returned him by five o’clock for evening meal count. They hadn’t agreed on any such thing, Eddie knows. Day pass escorts, even family, require extra levels of clearance and all sorts of written agreements. McDermott is playing hardball.

Eddie, naturally sympathetic to the pressures upon women in positions of authority in the criminal justice system, wonders fleetingly if the Warden is just trying to do her job and clutch at the few wins she can. Then she hears: “I know you have a fancy gig and all with Undercover, Officer Janko, but let me remind you that you do have the choice to take a less demanding position – and aren’t you just gonna do that anyway, sooner or later?”

The implication that she’s only in uniform for the maternity benefits is not lost on her. It’s a common enough jibe, but rare from another woman. The further assumption that any woman would, or should, expect to limit her career prospects for the sake of family – whether children or parents – is such a common and deeply entrenched view that Eddie knows there’s no way to combat it except by disproving it.

It’s one thing for Sergeant Vance to warn her that a pregnant agent or new mom will encounter certain unavoidable physical limitations in the field, and will probably have a hard time dealing with bad kid cases. But nobody at Undercover has ever suggested that she reduce her prospects because of that. Rather, they’re pushing her to consider a permanent career in the Organized Crime Bureau. (She’d be lying if she said she didn’t sort of love the idea of herself as an anti-Mob Boss Madam.)

Maybe McDermott is just really bitter and burned out?

Whatever angle the Warden is working, it’s falling flat. Eddie would like nothing more than to be done with every single person at Fort Dix, even the ever-helpful Gordon.

Except _it’s her dad_. Who made sure she never wanted for anything, including all his devoted love. The very worst part of his constant excuse that he only took up a life of fraud out of love for her and Mira is that it’s true. There’s no wiggling out from under it.

“Hey, sorry I’m so late,” she hears behind her, and then there’s the familiar scent of freshly-showered Jamie, and his warm hand on her shoulder and a kiss on her crown.

She slides her hand over his, and lets her head drop back against him with a sigh.

“Can you please just have coffee or something?” she begs him, “I really need to give my liver a workout.”

*** *** ***

It’s Sunday again. Spring is creeping into her apartment, on an early May morning, setting off the pale yellow-green and gold of the wallpaper. It’s the first sunny morning in a week, and the air is lax and damp, not numbingly cold as it has been. Eddie’s moved a few of her larger house plants near the windows so they can bask.

She sits at her small dining table over a blissful second coffee. Jamie, resplendent in boxers and t-shirt, putters domestically in the kitchen over scrambled eggs and toast, while she scrolls through a long catch-up e-mail from Jelena on her phone.

“ _Draga rođaka Edit,_

_I do apologize for the many days since I have written to you. Let me tell you what our family has been doing in their busy lives, and then please forgive me!_

_My husband Mirek has won a position with the Emergency Hospital. So he is no longer a family physician with surgical training, but a trauma surgeon! This is happy news, and he does not stop smiling even when his work is difficult. It is a big promotion and he has dreamt of this since he was teenager. But also we see less of him, for he must go at night when called._

_Our girls are doing well. Little sister Alexa has decided to become a veterinarian, because she loves animals so. Big sister Melinda is training in ballet under the London Royal Conservatory program, and hopes to audition for residential dance schools beginning next year. I try not to think too often of her leaving, but she has all the elements of a successful young dancer, and we are very proud of her. There is a strong history of ballet in Serbia, did you know this?_

_Myself, I continue taking courses at the university where I work, for my own interest. When the girls go back to school this September, I too will return to my books. I still hope to return to Biology research one day. I would like to undertake graduate studies at last. We have here a saying: “Beware the quiet cask that bubbles.” I think you say, “Dangerous when bored” in America?_

_Now, about the mystery of our cousin. Bojan and I received some information that took much time confirming of the stories. Which is another reason for why we have not contacted you in some time. We did not want to raise false hope._

_Baka Lizzie was able to remember more names of girls and staff from the English Children’s Home where she and Protetka Marija lived. We did not have much faith that any would be living still or would remember them. Nevertheless, Bojan and I placed an advertisement in several newspapers and on websites, asking for information. From this we located two ladies who had lived at the home. They are both nearly ninety years of age, now, like Lizzie. They were too kind to wish to be hurtful, at first, but they also remembered the stories that Marija may have had a baby before coming to the home._

_One of these ladies first lived in an Infant Home in the country, before she was rescued by the Allies and placed in the Children’s Home. She was four years old at that time, so she was big enough to remember. She remembers one of the house mothers saying that only five of the Infant Homes were left open, after the war, that were near enough to Belgrade for the mothers to visit on their days off work. The lady did not understand this at the time, except that she realized some of the children in the Infant Homes must have had mothers who could sometimes visit. She remembered this because no mother ever visited her. When she grew up she came to understand about the government closures of the baby farms and the soldiers’ terrible raids, of which I shall say no more.”_

Eddie’s heart is thumping away as she reads, one hand clutched around her coffee mug, barely moving but for her thumb scrolling down the screen.

“Everything okay there?” Jamie asks, sliding her plate in front of her. “You look a bit shook up.”

“This is…wow. Lemme read this out to you.”

She goes back to the start of the saga of the cousin, forking up her eggs without really tasting them. Jamie brings his plate to the table, and sits across from her as she catches him up. He’s become deeply invested in the search now, both wanting to help Eddie find her own family roots that’s she has been craving, and caught up in the mystery of it all.

_“This story we would have taken as only another sad memory, except that the second lady we spoke to had a story that felt connected. The second lady remembered Lizzie and Marija themselves. She remembered that Marija was scolded very severely for not reporting for work on two different days. The older girls all worked at the Children’s Home, as you remember, caring for the little girls and doing housekeeping tasks. The little girls were all somewhat scared of Marija, whom they knew did not like children, so there was some chatter among them when they saw her being scolded._

_This second lady is very certain that she remembers Marija saying, “I had to see him” to Matron. The lady thought that Marija must have been talking about seeing a boyfriend, but Matron did not scold her any more for this – in fact she looked as if she was sad for Marija. As an adult, when she looked back upon this, she realized that Marija could not have been talking about visiting a boyfriend, or she would have been expelled entirely from the Home, especially after two such events. No, this lady thought, Marija was talking about her son. And that is why Matron forgave her._

_So we have now a story of a girl who was thought by many – even her sister – to have had a baby during the war. The girl was scolded for running off from the Home on two different days so that she could see someone who was not a boyfriend, nor her young husband, who had been exiled, even if she had had any real feeling for him. And at that time, there were only five Infant Homes in the country still open that were close enough to the city for the mothers to reach to visit. This may mean that the remaining Infant Homes may have been older, more official state asylums with better reputations to have stayed open after the war – and with better record-keeping. And Marija’s son may have been living in one of them, knowing her as his mother at least until he was two or three years of age._

“My God,” Eddie breathes. “It’s gotta be her kid she was seeing.” Jamie, listening, nods slowly. “We’re talking about a teenager who lost almost her entire family a few years earlier. Of course she’d try to see him once in a while. She was probably the only person who’d care about an _Ustaše_ kid left in home. We know most of them were left to die. No wonder she couldn’t let that happen. Not when her little brothers and sisters died after she left them.”

She takes a deep breath, and reads on.

_“Our path has grown over with weeds since then. Even Bojan with his police clearance cannot convince the Government to release any documents on the Infant Homes from that time, without a proper case file to investigate. If we had some way to link a missing child with a piece of material evidence from one of the homes, we might have a chance. But I feel we are drawing closer. What do you feel? I do wish we were all together here. If only we could go to visit the places where the Homes once stood. If we could find a child’s clothing or books or toys – ”_

“A hairbrush with hair still in it, a book with a kid’s fingerprints – ” Jamie lists off. “We could do so much with just that, these days. How many government raised kids would have entered state employment or military service after the war, for a stable job? Boom, fingerprints on file somewhere.”

Eddie hums in agreement. “I mean, Bojan _could_ legitimately request any kids’ stuff he found near a known asylum site to be tested. Biologicals, hair and fiber, whatever. We know there had to have been babies and infants buried nearby, too. But we need probable cause to even launch a search. There’s just a bit more here…”

_“ – something that we might use for proof that there was still evidence to gather to bring more families together But I think it will take a collective effort of many prominent families admitting things they have denied for many years, to make this happen.”_

Eddie puts her phone down and blows out a slow breath between pursed lips. “She’s right about that. The Eastern Bloc countries are not all that keen to have their history examined too closely.”

“Luckily, DNA that’s lasted this long isn’t going to degrade much more. So that’s something.”

“I think,” Eddie says, “I think we should start talking about that trip to Serbia.”

*** *** ***


	20. Chapter 20

_Good heavens, what a time it's been! Yikes! Yes, the Detours are still winding their way to the truth, and yes, they will continue through the regular season...and yes, our lovebirds will be canoodling again soon. Thank you SO MUCH to everyone who has been reading and commenting, and hello to the new readers over the hiatus!_

* * *

 

It’s just as well they’ve kept to their new late-Sunday-lunch schedule. Even in the middle of a May afternoon, the heavy drapes are pulled across the bay windows of the dining room, against a relentless, three-day rain. Inside it’s cozy. The table is loaded with familiar comfort food, and they’re all dressed pretty cozily too, in denim and flannel, corduroy and big sweaters. For some time, it’s been quiet around the table, but for the clink of cutlery and occasional requests for things to be passed up and down. Everyone is apparently drowsy and hungry today.

Most of them are onto second helpings of Uncle Danny’s pot roast and Henry’s homemade soft butter buns when Nicky realizes that the kids have been largely carrying the conversation around the table for the last half hour or so. In the normal course of affairs, any monopolization of the dinner table, especially by the kids, would have been checked by someone, probably Grandpa. A quick glance confirms that the adults have fallen into preoccupied half-listening nods as she and Jack and Sean compare predictions for the summer and the term ahead.

Maybe it’s just been a long week. Maybe it’s the rain.

If Aunt Linda was here, Nicky thinks, the whole family would have been laughing and carrying on as usual. Aunt Linda liked a good lively meal, for all she was a stern referee and disciplinarian when they were little. Eddie is all kinds of wonderful, but she’s different from her usual everyday self, still a little cautious among the massed Reagan rabble.

The meal hadn’t started out that way. The adults were shaken into life, right after Grace, by Jack clearing his throat and reading out his official acceptance and fully-funded scholarship for Princeton, to a chorus of congratulations and high-fives. He plans to study for a broad Public Policy degree, and is eyeing the Cognitive Science program. Grandpa and Pop agreed this could only help with the eventual supervisory career in policing he hopes for.

Uncle Jamie gravely reminded him that, as he himself is a Harvard grad, they will obviously now be lifelong sworn enemies. Then Mom reminded them that as a Columbia grad, she’s supposed to loathe the sight of both of them.

“And I’m a Columbia grad, too – or I will be next month,” Nicky added.

“Roar, Lions, Roar,” Mom quoted, holding up her fork like a torch.

“Fair Harvard holds sway,” put in Uncle Jamie, as if correcting her politely.

“Did you even go to one game of _anything_ up there?” Uncle Danny demanded.

“Hey, boxing team, remember, Jocko?”

“Came in all kinds of handy,” Mom said, surprisingly. “In dealing with the _handsy_ , as the case may be.”

Uncle Danny laughed aloud. “Oh, you mean that twisted little creep who tried – ”

Grandpa waved his napkin in the air to call for order, and Eddie snickered.

It was remarkable how many stories came out once all the kids were grown, Nicky thought.

 “Aunt Erin, what about military school?” asked Sean, into the ensuing amused looks between Mom and the uncles. “How does that figure into the grudge match?”

“I’ll leave that between you and the cops in the family,” Mom replied. “The Marines at the table will take your side, no doubt.”

“And I get pulled in two, is that it?” Danny retorted, clapping a hand on Sean’s shoulder. “Son, you stay in the military as long as they’ll have you, you hear me? We got plenty of cops, and a couple of shiny new ones in the making besides. This family has given plenty to the NYPD.”

Sean had just grinned at his father, pleased, and forked up more carrots and gravy. A year ago, he would have grunted monosyllabically at anything Danny said to him, if he responded at all. Now the two go shooting at an outdoor police and military range overlooking the Hudson on weekends. Jack and Nicky, too, sometimes, and Grandpa if he has time.

That was when the adults began to fall silent, Nicky realizes. She hadn’t noticed it then, watching Sean and Danny across the table. She was too busy imagining the whole family in years to come, assembled after one of the various NYPD uniformed events, with herself and Jack also sitting up tall and neat in their dress blues. Uncle Danny’s right. That would make Sean and Mom the only people at the table not in uniform. She doesn’t think of her and Jack’s decision to join up in terms of the family “giving” to the NYPD, not like Uncle Joe. It’s just a natural progression.

Even if it’s happening much slower than she’d like.

After a month in which it was a struggle to eat and sleep from the sheer stress of her last final exams of a double-major undergrad and her NYPD Job Standards Test – the dreaded police physical – she is now just waiting to be called for her character background and personal interview.  Her test went fine. Not brilliantly, but not at all badly. She’s no athlete, but she’s been training like crazy for six months. She’s always been ballerina-slim, like her mother, which means she was at the end of the body-type spectrum that had to work to gain muscle, rather than lose weight, to succeed. She’s gone up a dress size, but she’s pretty ripped, if she says so herself. She’s not at all used to this heavier, more powerful body she’s carrying around.

It’s been eye-opening to watch strangers react to her physical presence now. She’s adopted Officer Walsh’s loping stride and Eddie’s camera-like sweeping gaze while she’s on street patrol. She keeps her hands out of her pockets and ready to work. She parts downtown crowds like the Red Sea and they don’t even know why. Taking up that kind of space in the world is a very strange feeling for her.

_What would Dale make of me now?_ she wonders. It’s been a while. She turned down his invitation to Boston last month, what with her insane schedule, but he’s invited her to his next show in New York, at a bar in Queens. She’s undecided. She wishes they’d given each other a proper chance at a relationship. It might have made it easier to let go, if nothing else. There’s too many possibilities and unknowns to just say goodbye.

She hauls her thoughts away from Dale. Everyone thinks she’s long past him, and it’s best to keep it that way for now.

“We’re not going to need too much stuff,” Jack is saying, as she tunes back in, “Just for day to day. Kent’s family keeps their summer place furnished for guests anytime, and I guess we’re it for the summer. It’ll be good practice for moving into dorms in September. Low-overhead living.”

Jack will be moving out in early July. He and two other NYPD Summer Cadet Interns will be living in a Long Island beach house belonging to one of their families, and working under the strict but pleasant Sergeant Clare at the Montauk precinct. He’ll come home every other weekend, and have a week at home before moving into Mathey College at Princeton. Like Sean, he’ll try to get home every month or so after that, schoolwork and activities permitting.

In between their visits, Nicky will be the only one left from her generation at the table. She thinks of what a burden it used to seem to her. All the hours of sitting around and talking grated horribly on her nerves. She’d much rather have been with her friends, or just to spend her precious weekend time alone, away from the watchful eyes of a whole houseful of elders. Now she’s grateful for a chance to slow down and think in peace, and she worries a little about those elders, especially Pop.

“What about you and Tasha?” Sean asks his brother. They’ve all come to like Tasha more and more. She and Jack are good for each other, with the same drive to excel and be useful somehow, and the same fundamental solidity to their characters. They’re very young, and it’s the first major relationship for both of them, but Nicky hopes things keep working out for them.

 “Oh, we’ll see each other. Long Island’s not that far. At least until college starts. She’s going to Pace, for Educational Psych. In fact – ” Jack lifts his napkin briefly to his mouth, in a very Jamie-like stall, and goes on: “I wondered if it would be okay if she came for dinner now and then, over the summer? And when I have weekends home from Princeton? I mean, it’s not that we’re, like, settling down or anything. We’re just not going to have much time to see each other for, like, four years. And if I’m only home for basically a day and a half every month – ”

He’s rambling a little, and it’s totally charming. There are smiles hovering around the table. Mom looks a little wistful, and Nicky knows that she, too, is thinking that it’s not fair that Aunt Linda has missed all of this.

“Then by all means spend time together here, and make the most of every hour you can,” Pop says. It’s the first thing he’s said since dinner began. His voice has the old ring of command in it, and everyone looks up, a little guiltily, as if they’d forgotten him at the far end, in his quietude.

“It’ll be nice to have a reason not to take the extra extension out of the table,” Grandpa agrees, mildly. “I’ve been dreading how roomy it will seem without you all. I’ll be just as glad to leave everything the way it is. Tasha’s always welcome.”

Jack nods. “I’ll tell her. Thanks.”

“That’s cool she’s going to Pace,” says Sean. “You guys can go back and forth and still see each other. It’s only, what, an hour?”

“If we had cars. She’s thinking about getting one. So’m I, if I can afford it. Campus parking costs a bomb, though, besides all the upkeep.”

“And another guy buys his first car just to see his girl,” his father teases him gently. Jack just shrugs.

“Like you and Mom?”

“Like me and Mom,” Uncle Danny agrees. He doesn’t sound sad anymore, Nicky thinks. Nostalgic, but not mournful. Even a little glad, maybe, to have a reason to look back on himself at Jack’s age, and dating his own high school sweetheart. And they were separated too, for years, while Danny was in his first tour with the Marines.

“Will it seem weird to the troop, my still living at home during Academy?” she muses aloud. “I mean, I know I won’t be the only one, but – it just seems so kiddish. Don’t recruits ever share an apartment or something?”

“Well, some do, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it,” her grandfather replies. “Think of having to get to know and adjust to new roommates while you’re trying to get through the hardest, and I mean the _hardest_ six months of your life. You’ll already be working and studying with them forty hours a week.”

“And the pay’s not that great for recruits and first-years,” says Uncle Jamie. “Most of your troop will be in the same place, probably. Just graduated and moved back home for training. Save your salary, is my advice. If you want to share a place with other cops, wait till you get to know them better. You never know who you’ll end up working with.”

There’s another pause. So much for re-sparking a conversation. Mom is still sitting quietly, following the conversation, and watching Uncle Jamie and Grandpa, who are now intermittently exchanging looks. It’s Jamie who seems to have something heavy on his mind.

Eddie flicks an uneasy glance between them.

“ _Well_ ,” Mom says, as if it’s fallen to her to cut through the rising weirdness, “I’ll be glad to have you home a little longer. Your room’s still yours. It always will be.”

Nicky smiles and nods. This is performative, for the benefit of the family. They’ve already talked about this.

There’s another stretch of silence. This time Nicky clearly sees Uncle Jamie staring down Grandpa for a long moment. Grandpa breaks his gaze first and turns to Uncle Danny. He nearly opens his mouth to say something, then changes his mind, looks at Sean instead and smiles benevolently.

She sees Eddie stifle a tiny sigh of impatience. But then -

“So we visited Eddito and his parents last week,” Eddie says, seemingly cheerful, “Speaking of kids. He’s doing so great.”

_Okay, what the hell is going on?_ It’s as if Uncle Jamie and Grandpa need to go shout at each other or something, but not quite. And Uncle Danny hasn’t been kept in the loop. Whatever it is, Eddie’s in on it, too.

For the next few minutes, Eddie and Uncle Jamie tell Little Eddie stories and pass around a few new photos on Eddie’s phone, and everyone relaxes visibly.

The two of them start talking about Serbia, and a family visit in the fall, with a visit to Ireland on the way back. Jamie’s been to Ireland twice, as a child, and loved it. Eddie’s never been to either, though she’s been getting to know some cousins of hers over Skype. They keep asking her to visit, and they hope to come to New York, in time.

“Bojan’s a police officer, too, in Belgrade. He thinks he might be able to help me out with some police contacts on the other end of the trafficking channels I’m studying.”

“Studying?” asks Mom pointedly. “Is that the extent of it?”

“No, but it’s all I can really talk about for now. I’m pretty psyched, actually. There’s a lot of work to do.”

“You got that right,” Mom says. “I’ve worked with a few young women who’ve come out the other end of that life.”

“That’s the plan. Better yet, to stop them getting dragged in in the first place.”

Even if Eddie was trying to distract from some other non-conversation, she’s perked right up now, unconsciously talking with her hands again. Erin offers to have her over to the office to see if they can be of any mutual assistance to each other. Eddie demurs, a little pink. “I’m afraid I can’t be seen hanging around DA’s offices anymore,” she says, “But let me find out how much I can loop you in, and we’ll go for a session somewhere.”

“Keep your sessions far away from downtown,” Grandpa advises.

“I’ll wear a wig,” Eddie assures him, in a stage whisper. She gives Grandpa an extra look, though, and Nicky wonders if a wig might actually be part of her work setup.

“Uncle Jamie, don’t you have an undercover dream gig of some kind, too?” she asks. Jamie seems happy enough for Eddie, but he’s been silent about his own work.

“Not just now,” he says, “I’m doing some internal research for the unit. Hopefully it’ll keep more of the undercover officers safe and better equipped. Or at least _better informed_.”

This time, nobody can pretend not to see the look Grandpa gives him, as if Uncle Jamie just rebuked him somehow in public. Uncle Danny notices too, and his eyes narrow and focus on the two of them.

“Francis,” Pop says, “Something amiss?”

“Not just now,” Grandpa echoes Jamie.

It’s not an answer to anything. But a truce seems to be drawn.

“Then what’s for dessert?” asks Pop, a little tetchily.

*** *** ***

It’s 0735 on Monday morning.

The clouds have lifted overnight, and the sky has just grudgingly brightened to the color and texture of brushed steel, giving the skyscrapers and pavements six floors below a postcard-typical New York tint of blue.

This is usually Vance’s favourite week in the training calendar. It’s the first Monday that his latest team of recruits are no longer students but UC officers working on their first assignment. He’s taught them to think like cops with one part of their brain and stay in character with another, to improvise and find opportunities, to fight and survive in minute-long increments if need be. They will come to the One PP to do research, to consult with senior team members and check in with their operational handlers, and to work out. The orbit of these fledglings will increase by the week until before they know it, they’re in the field full-time, making only contact calls as necessary. But for now, they’re as pumped as any new Academy graduates, eager to show what they can do.

In the office classroom, Vance stands by the large window, looking down at the street. The first of many black coffees is tight in his meaty fist. His faded khaki cargo pants are tucked into well-polished army boots and his plain green sweatshirt wearing thin at the elbows and neck. It’s his nicest look, to start the week off on a somewhat professional note. He’s one of a very small handful of employees of the One PP who doesn’t have to work in uniform or in business attire. He hopes to count on that for the next seven or eight, until he retires.

Anyway, he knows he looks ridiculous in uniform these days. Even with a decent cop fitness level for fifty-eight, he looks like bad news: thick of neck and belly, solid of limb, shiny-headed, grizzle-jawed, baggy-eyed and mean. It’s been a long time since every woman he’s walked towards on the street hasn’t gone into a taut, defensive stance or crossed the street. Some of the more assertive try to pin him with a look of “I’m keeping my eye on you.” More than a few men, too. It’s ironic that he wishes sometimes that he could congratulate the ones who maintain good personal vigilance, or deliver a quick scolding to the careless and the ones who seem to court trouble. But he’s too hard-wired now to ever out himself as a cop in public.

He swallows down some coffee and watches the crowd milling towards the office, across the street. There’s huddle of clerks from downstairs, coming in together from their train. There are a few familiar faces from the next door building. That easy long stride heading for the coffee shop is Reagan, who never had to wonder if he was good enough to wear the uniform, or if he’d be accepted by his troop, but only if he wanted it. And he’s a genuinely nice guy as well as some sort of genius, the little bastard.  

Vance was warned the PC’s Golden Boy would be a thorn in his side, questioning everything, watching everyone to see if they screwed up. But if anything, the kid’s been too eager to please, too ready to admit he had everything to learn. His defiance really only manifests at work in that he clearly enjoys proving assholes wrong. His problem is he’s bored. He could have learned most of the lecture material in a quarter of the time just by reading, though he’s thrown himself into combat and character classes willingly. He’s just so choirboy squeaky, Reagan. He’s a very different cop than his big brother.

Good thing the kid wasn’t NYPD in the ‘70s, or he’d have ended up in floating in the Hudson after trying to convince the wrong person to go straight. Or just disappearing entirely one day, if he was working on the Jersey side. There was some wild rumor about his late brother Joe’s old car being tampered with, but that had to be mostly bullshit, right? Desperate men do desperate things, and Vance knows plenty of men with absolutely no concern for life when it comes to sending a message, but who’d be plumb stupid enough to try to take out _another_ of the PC’s sons, in the dead son’s car? They wouldn’t live to see the dawn.

Vance thinks again about Reagan coming in on the train alone, as he does every morning. He wondered at first if Reagan could possibly be so pious as to pretend he and Janko weren’t essentially living together out of two apartments. They commute separately, and never treat each other as anything but partners at work. But over the months, he’s watched them observing their surroundings, even doubling back and forwards on the street sometimes, as if they’ve just forgotten something, checking to see if they can spot a tail observing _them_. (They don’t realize their tail is actually six floors up and across the street, which he needs to talk to them about.)

He thinks it’s probably trained into every Reagan from birth, that kind of vigilance, but Janko? It doesn’t come naturally to her. Vance wondered if they thought they were in training as international spies or something, but as the weeks went by, he began to think they were being genuinely careful. Reagan’s eager to get back out into the field, or at least it _seems_ like it. There’s something going on that Vance can’t quite put a finger on. And he’s not going to pair him up with his girlfriend on her own mission. That wouldn’t be good for them. Right now they need growing space, as much as they hate it.

General Public Crime Prevention would be a waste of his talents, even though he can disappear perfectly into any crowd of tourists or businesspeople. They can’t put him back into White Collar Crime while the younger Sanfino kids are being released from their various jail sentences, and could still be controlled by their still-incarcerated uncles.

So Vance handed the youngest Reagan a solid research assignment to keep his brain from overflowing and causing trouble, and keep him nearby while UC decides what to do with him.

There’s certainly enough work to do. If Reagan could link a few plausible names and faces to the sporadic stories about a handful of UC cops turning seriously dirty, that would be valuable. Vance knows that only the luckiest cops get to determine the legacy they leave behind them, but if he can leave a slightly cleaner force, he’ll be satisfied.

Boucher thinks it’s all a bunch of paranoid baloney, this talk of dirt taking hold among the UC officers. Everyone knows there’s corruption, but Boucher has personally trained and fought with every one of the last fifteen years’ worth of new UC cops.  He has carefully watched and checked on them all.

Pascal, though, he’s with Vance. In fact, Pascal knows a guy who mentioned knowing an actual guy involved in some shady shit, but he hasn’t been able to get a second hint. Pascal’s getting a bit paranoid lately, hanging around watching people and asking more questions about it all than a non-Undercover Sergeant has any reason to do.

There’s a saying in cop circles that paranoia is good for the health, but now that Vance is older, he thinks that good intel is better.

It’ll be interesting to see what shakes out of the apple tree when a regular officer does the shaking, not a supervisor. The UC officers will obviously know they’re talking to the PC’s kid, but they’ll think they’re just there for a standard check-in, plus some interested questions from an eager-beaver new recruit.

After all, UC officers never get to join in with the after-tour bar bullshit, and they _never_ get to brag over beers. Bright-eyed Jamie might just be the one they open up to.

It’s 0745. Vance sits down at the speckled-gray front table and settles his habitual pissed-off glare in place. Some, if not all of the cohort should be appearing any moment.

But it’s Janko, not Reagan, who comes in a few minutes later, in a trim black skirt suit and pumps and white shirt, her own coffee in hand. She hasn’t slept well. She’s wearing concealer under her eyes and her mouth is drawn down and thoughtful.

“Morning, Boss,” she greets him, tired but cordial. She looks around the room. “Is Reagan in the gym already? He said he was gonna work out first, since he’s sitting at a desk all day.”

Vance about to grunt a hello, but he feels a bad tingle spread from the back of his neck across the muscles of his shoulders before it hits him in the gut.

He’s calculating how many minutes it’s been since he saw Reagan head into the coffee shop across the street, and Janko’s pale blue eyes are spearing him in growing horror, when her phone buzzes. She drops her softshell briefcase on the nearest table and plunges her hand into the small front pocket. By the time she’s scrolling through the message, and then two more that beep in rapid succession, Vance is on his feet beside her.

She slumps with relief. “Security alert,” she tells him, tightly. “His car’s been broken into. He’s okay. I gotta go.”

Which sucks indeed, he thinks, but this is something more than a heads-up from the landlord. _Security alert? Why wouldn’t Reagan be okay?_ And why does Janko need to attend one of the dozens of car break-ins that occur in NYC every day, boyfriend or not? How big a deal is a shattered window or punched lock?

“Go,” he tells her anyway. “Check in when you can.”

Maybe the kid’s car really was fucked over before, like the rumor mill said? Nothing about this feels normal.

Janko whirls around and sprints towards the elevator bank without a word.

_What have those two got themselves into?_

He thinks about that some more. What have they been _dropped_ into, and by whom? And by extension, himself?

All he can do at the moment is wait.

It’s 0751. Flavia saunters in then, Leroy on her heels, and Monday begins as if the last few minutes never happened.

*** *** ***

Jamie waits at the Security booth of the parkade under the One PP. He usually enjoys being driven around in his father’s Escalade, but not like this.

The parkade elevator dings. As the door glides open, Eddie steps out quickly, her heels ticking on the pavement at nearly twice the speed of the two male detectives from the PC’s division who are with her, just to keep up. On any other day it would be cute as hell. Today, she’s clearly cursing having to dress up for work when she should be in uniform going to a scene.

“I’m fine,” he says, by way of greeting. No matter that he’s texted the same words to her and his father several times within the last ten minutes.

“You are,” she allows, giving him a quick once-over even though they’re miles from where his car was actually broken into. “Please stay that way.”

“That’s the plan. Good thinking, by the way. Dad should be here soon.”

Rather than hopping a cab straight home, Eddie had reminded him that they couldn’t just call the break-in into the local precinct like any other case. They can’t have just any uniform investigating either of their apartments, and they certainly can’t have Maldonaldo assigning officers to the call. They can’t risk having Danny hear about it over the radio or through blue line chatter. And yet there was no way they should go barrelling into a potentially hot scene without backup. Calling Frank, who travelled with tight security and who knew the whole story, was the only option.

His father generally doesn’t arrive at the One PP until shortly before nine. He had just been getting ready to leave home when Jamie called to pass on the alert. He and his detail, headed by Sergeant Jimenez this morning, will arrive any moment, with Frank on board, after which they will all make tracks for Jamie’s place.

Eddie is as confused as Jamie by what they’ve learned from the security alert, but they can discuss that on the way.

The monitoring system they’d set up based on Augustus’ specifications had done its job, silently capturing crystal clear audio and video of the five minutes before and after the break-in. It had sent a text alert right away to both of their phones, and then a still image from the camera mounted in the ceiling of the Mustang, once it sensed a human face within its frame.

The face is familiar to them both – somewhat dear to them both, even – and makes no sense.

The swivelling blue light overhead signals an incoming vehicle, and they and the two detectives step away from the entrance arm, which lifts as the black Escalade slides into the secure bay. Jimenez is tight-jawed but hyperalert, having sped the whole way from Bay Ridge. Frank, sitting beside him, beckons to the group outside. The two detectives, Carmody and Hanover, fold themselves into the back row. Jamie and Eddie take the middle row. Frank looks back at them both.

“I’m very glad you called, and I owe you both an apology for being so damn stubborn yesterday. What can you tell me?”

His dad is beating himself up pretty badly, Jamie thinks, and no wonder, given how they left things after their quiet, almost whispered row in the library before lunch yesterday. Even Eddie had weighed in, though it cost her dearly to speak against Frank in his own house. Frank had argued again that it was premature to bring Danny and Erin into the picture, that they would only react with anger and fear and questions that could not be answered sufficiently, and that might come to nothing after all. Jamie and Eddie responded that it would be far worse to have to explain the situation to them if something actually happened on Frank’s watch. Especially that it was to help Frank assess the extent and activities of any residual Templar activity that they had agreed to get involved.

But just now there are other things to deal with.

“We have one image from the alert. I could log into the monitor laptop via remote, and get the rest of the video right now, but if we get TARU to look at it, they can report that it was not accessed by anyone before they got there.”

Frank nods. “We’ll have TARU attend once we see what we’re dealing with. No proximity alarms from your car?” he asks Eddie, “or from either of your apartments?”

“No, but Dad, check this out.”

He holds out his phone, and Frank takes it. On screen is a single shot of a young man in an NYPD duty jacket zipped against the cold, but bare-headed. As he’s leaning into the open driver-side door, his eager, unworried face is clearly in view of the camera in the ceiling. There is a glimmer of something at his throat.

“Is that – ”

“Yup,” Jamie replies.

The brass on his uniform shirt collar clearly reads “12”.

Frank shakes his head and hands the phone back. “You know him?”

“I should,” Jamie says. “I’ve mentored him personally over the last six months or so. Theo Sipowicz. Till this morning I’d have said he’s a great kid, gonna do the uniform proud. I’m pretty sure he’s been set up.”

“That’s the only way I can make sense of it, too,” Eddie says. “He’s always talking about his dad and his brother, wanting to be like them.”

“Theo Sipowicz is Andy’s kid?”

“Yup. He’s just joined up.”

Frank grimaces, deeply unhappy.

Andy Sipowicz had retired out of the turbulent One-Five seven years ago, at the rank of Commander. His oldest son, Andy Jr., had been killed on the job, fifteen years before that. Young Theo, from Andy Sr.’s second marriage, had joined up less than a year ago, and has been posted to the One-Two since graduation.

Frank and Andy know each other fairly well, between serving the NYPD over the same decades, and attending the police funerals for each other’s sons. Frank is not looking forward to having to sit Andy down and explain why his middle son is under investigation.

“We’ll have to wait and get TARU on the video and see what he actually did in there,” he says heavily.

“I just hope whatever he’s gotten caught up in is something we can get him safely out of,” Jamie says. “Maybe he can help lead us into the center of things, I don’t know. I do know this kid has no beef with either of us. I mean, he’s a bit of a mouse. We’ve had to _coach_ him on officer presence.”

“Someone’s gotten to him,” Eddie agrees. “You think Maldonaldo? He’d be the obvious link.”

“Yeah, but too obvious?”

“Occam’s Razor,” replies Eddie.

They don’t say much else on the drive.

His apartment block seems oddly different to him, when they reach his block and drive around the back. An hour ago he’d locked up and left, thinking of little else but a Monday morning coffee and bagel, and hopefully to have time to talk more with Eddie after work, do some work on the slight tension between them. But his building seems to be an alien place now, no longer his haven. Maybe he should go stay at Eddie’s for a bit? Would that be better for her, to be in her own space while they clear the air a little?

_That may be their point_ , he thinks, _whoever they are. Just to shake you up a bit and see what you do._

Jimenez pulls over on the street and nods, leaving the car idling and ready to roll out as always. Everyone else clambers out, and Carmody holds out his hand for Jamie’s clicker. The parkade door rolls up and the two detectives enter first, sweeping with their guns. It feels awkward not to be the ones doing the sweep, but, he and Eddie acknowledge silently with a look, they’re dressed for the office today. They have their weapons, of course, but neither is wearing a baton, handcuffs, OC spray, or even plastic zap straps.

The irony of being so highly trained now in weaponless combat and negotiation skills, but being otherwise useless at their own scene, is not lost upon them. They can’t be the ones to collect and investigate evidence from Jamie’s own apartment.

Once the detectives nod and re-holster, the others walk in.

Jamie glances at his father and silently points out a small alcove in the concrete wall, built to accommodate a pipe running past. The other drone camera is settled in there, nearly hidden unless you know where to look. It’s not programmed to send alerts, since it would be activated by every resident coming in and out of the parkade, but it will have captured video of Theo’s entry and exit from the street, with time stamps. It’s far less legal than the camera in his personal car, but they will deal with that later.

Frank nods.

The Mustang looks exactly as he left it in its assigned space, locked and waiting. The blue security light is blinking slowly and calmly on the dash. The car has keyless entry, which means that the door must have been opened with a physical key, carefully copied somehow, or a manufacturer’s master key that the car recognized as legit. The parkade door is undamaged. It’s only relatively secure; any techie with a decent set of equipment could trace the frequency and recreate a working clicker.

Jamie walks towards the car slowly. They agreed on the drive that even if the car was booby-trapped, it wouldn’t be rigged to do anything dramatic under a residential apartment building. For a group bent on remaining invisible, that would be the surest way of bringing hellfire down upon them. It’s far more likely that this was a reconnaissance job.

Still, Jamie approaches slowly and stays about a foot away from the car, as he walks around it. He bends to inspect the seals he placed himself on the windows, hood and trunk – tiny transparent sticker dots, now covered in dust and all but invisible – and then drops to his hands and knees to peer underneath, despite being in a good suit.

“I can’t tell what he did from the outside,” Jamie says, shaking his head as he dusts off his knees and steps back. “Maybe he was looking for something, or maybe he just wanted to see if he could get in and out again. But even that makes no sense. There’s no sign of other entry, and nothing obvious underneath. The seals are all intact.”

“Right, then,” Frank says. “Upstairs. Lead the way,” he gestures to Carmody and Hanover. Carmody, with a rueful smile, now holds out his hand for Jamie’s house keys. Jamie detaches the relevant ones and pockets the others again.

The detectives go through the same security sweep as before, at Jamie’s door, and then enter. Frank pauses.

“Would you, ah, like me to wait outside?”

It takes Jamie a moment to realize that his father is asking if, since they weren’t expecting any visitors, they might have left anything personal out in the open. Especially in the bedroom, where the security monitor laptops are locked in the gun safe in the closet. He grins for the first time all day, albeit somewhat grimly.

“No, no. You think a pair of cops isn’t always thinking of the places they’ve had to go into?”

His father sends them both a look and steps inside. “Well, have a look round to be sure there’s been no breach, and then let’s figure out how to bring TARU in quietly.”

Nobody’s expecting to find any signs of entry, but they’re not taking chances. It’s a creepy enough feeling knowing that Theo found it so easy to get into his car. He moves quickly from room to room, first checking that the seals on the gun safe haven’t been tampered with since they both collected their weapons this morning. He’s more relieved than he wants to let on that his apartment seems untouched. He’s talked a lot of B&E victims through the process of re-entering and reclaiming their spaces, and he knows it’s not easy.

“That’s obvious, isn’t it?” Eddie says, as Jamie ducks his head into the bathroom to check. “Call Detective McKenna. It’s time to bring her in anyway.”

Jamie pricks his ears up. His father was highly resistant to dragging McKenna and Chan into the whole situation, even yesterday.

“I defer to you, this time,” Frank agrees, bowing slightly. “It’s her area of expertise, and yes, it’s time we had that discussion with her about her weekend work. I’ve been overly cautious in waiting. I just don’t want anyone exposed to danger unnecessarily. I’ll ask Baker to have TARU send her here.”

“Does Detective Baker know about all – ” Eddie begins, waving her hand descriptively.

“Only a little, but she won’t ask any questions and she’ll impress the importance of discretion upon them.”

There’s not a lot more to be said. Finished with his prowling, Jamie comes to stand next to Eddie, near the kitchen counter.

Frank pulls out his phone to call Baker.

“Well,” says Eddie, looking at the group of large male officers standing around the apartment, also waiting for the next thing to happen, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to check in with our supervisor and somehow explain why we’re all fine but we’re not coming back to work today. And then I’m getting out of this damn suit and into some decent working clothes.”

*** *** ***

Vance isn’t thrilled about them taking an unplanned personal day, but when Frank gets on the phone and explains that it’s a family thing, there isn’t much Vance could do. He expects them back at work tomorrow, he tells them, to which Jamie replies he sincerely expects that, too.

It takes McKenna about an hour to get there, having been pulled away from her current on-site job. She’s mystified as to why the PC has asked for her personally to attend at the home of his son, and even more confused to find the PC not there.

“He’s speaking with the property manager about changing the parkade clickers,” Jamie explains, as McKenna lines up her portable equipment cases on the floor beside the couch, and gratefully accepts a cup of coffee that Eddie holds out to her. “How you been, McKenna?”

“I’ve been less weirded out,” the redhead admits, wrapping her hands around her mug, “But you get the gold star for weirdness today. How are _you_ doing?”

“Keeping going. The Mustang’s kind of my alter-ego on wheels, you know?”

“Yeah, man,” she shakes her head sympathetically. “I got a ’92 Jimmy I would die for. Gonna take a lot of repairs?”

“No, they didn’t really do anything we can see. Sit down for a bit. There’s more to this than just a break in and a security vid to check out.”

“Ooo-kay.”

Jamie has to smile as McKenna settles herself on the couch and looks expectantly across at him and Eddie, who joins them with her own coffee. Back in her jeans, properly caffeinated and with Jamie safe under her eyes, she’s much calmer than she was.

“D’you guys both live here?” McKenna asks curiously. Eddie lifts her hands up and down, in a more-or-less motion.

“Sometimes here, sometimes mine.”

Now that his own initial shock has worn off, his major concern is for Theo, and how he got sucked into this mess. But there’s nothing he and Eddie can do for Theo right now, not without alerting him that they have surveillance on their homes and vehicles, which Theo might in turn be pressed into revealing to whoever is controlling him.

Someone has been watching Jamie for a long time. Long enough to know where he lives, what model car he drives, the fact that he doesn’t drive to work anymore, and that his car would be unattended and safe to access soon after he left for the day.

But not closely enough to know about their custom security rig, until now. If that person is watching today, Jamie thinks, they’ll certainly know that Jamie was alerted instantly.

Wait.

He suddenly knows how they got to Theo.

They’d have told him that his buddy Jamie Reagan needed help, that he was being targeted in his new undercover job and that it would be a favor to him if Theo would do extra patrols past his apartment. They stayed in the shadows and sent Theo out to do their work, and the neighbours said nothing. Why would they? A nice young police officer checking on the place was a good thing, especially since most of the building knows Jamie’s a cop, too.

So it was Theo who brought back all the information about Jamie’s car, even the make of the parkade gate, his travel patterns, however much they switched them up day to day. Then it would be easy for someone at the One-Two to hand Theo a car key and a clicker one day. Tell him that Jamie was deep undercover, but he’d asked if someone would check on his car once or twice, to make sure it was okay.

That’s all Theo had done. Jamie knows it even without seeing the video. He’d know instantly if anything had been moved around inside his car. Theo hadn’t hidden his face because it hadn’t occurred to him to do so. He was happy to help. That was the expression on his face.

And he won’t come back again today because he’s done his bit of extra duty for this shift. And now whoever is handling him knows that they can get into Jamie’s car easily, whenever they want. Except they’ll find that the parkade door clicker no longer works. Jamie’s also going to see about one of those high-security magnetic keys, or maybe a fingerprint lock on his car.

The next big favor they ask of Theo, though, might be to check on Jamie’s apartment, if they can wrangle a duplicate set of his keys somehow – or Eddie’s. That’s something to discuss very soon. He doesn’t think all their various deadbolts are worth anyone’s time to spend defeating, but if someone were truly determined…

The only time their keys have been out of sight is when they’ve been in their gym lockers at the One PP while they’ve been training, he thinks.

He makes a mental note to explain this to his father, before Frank talks to Theo or Andy.

“You with us?” Eddie asks. He nods.

“Yeah. Sorry. Thinking. You ever hear of a group within the NYPD called the Blue Templar?” he asks McKenna, leaning forward. She thinks for a moment, and then her brow clears.

“1980s, right? Bunch of dudes who were supposed to be white hats and saints and ended up being retired early for graft?”

“Something like that, yeah. There’s been talk that there might be some left. Or maybe they’ve started up again. We don’t have a lot of details. Now, my dad’s asked you here personally because this case isn’t really a case. He’ll explain more, but there’s a chance you might’ve gotten pulled into an investigation we’re running, into a Templar resurgence, without you knowing it. And yes, before you ask, we _also_ need you going through the videos, and just for full disclosure, because you don’t have to accept, this is completely off-the-books and need-to-know.”

Jamie’s not sure how he expected McKenna to respond to all this, but her quick chuckle wasn’t it.

“It’s Frosty, right?” she asks. “Please, tell me it’s to do with Frosty. That jackass has had it in for you for months and I could never figure out why. Makes sense, though, if he thinks you’re after him. You think he had something to do with your car?”

“Not directly, exactly but –” Eddie says, “What made you think of him right away?”

“He’s always going on about corruption in the ranks, and trying to catch people being shady on the precinct CCTV tapes. You know, things going missing from evidence. Like major things you don’t want hitting the street – ”

“And working girls being made to volunteer their services so they don’t spent the night in cells but get sent out the back door onto the street again,” Eddie supplies. McKenna nods slowly.

“So we are talking about the same kind of thing,” she says. “I’m relieved someone else is on it. Frosty’s got some paranoid conspiracy shit in his head, but I’ve seen some stuff on film I wish I didn’t know about. And I always wanted to ask him, hey man, how do you know where to look? And how come these guys aren’t getting nailed for it? He’s said once or twice he’s putting a major case together, and we just have to be patient and collect the evidence.”

“Is that what Frosty had you looking for on weekend shifts?” Jamie asks. McKenna blinks suspiciously at him through her glasses, and Eddie hastily explains:

“We’ve been talking with Tanisha Gabany, in Sergeant Estevez’ office next to Frosty’s. The one who deals with all the payroll and things. We really were planning to talk to you about all this, soon. Today just kind of exploded, and we’re scrambling to pick up the pieces. The Commissioner will be back in a minute. He’s the one you should probably talk to directly about anything more.”

“Ooo-kay,” McKenna says again, slowly. “Well, I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intrigued, and I do love a mystery, but yes, it’s the PC himself I oughta be talking to, if he’s the one who called me in. I get that he’s your dad and all, but…tell me about the vids from today, if that’s why I’m here.”

“You’re gonna love this setup,” Jamie tells her. As he outlines the type of drone cams and software he and Eddie are using at their apartments, her eyes light up.

“Sweet!” is her verdict. “I mean, it sucks about the car, but good to know it works right. Show me the stuff. I’ll grab my evidence bags and camera.”

They don’t need to explain to her, Jamie notes, that even though this isn’t a real case, they’re still going through evidence protocols. Even more stringent because of the nature of their investigation. They’re trying to gather evidence for a potential police investigation and criminal court case without alerting the police who would be gathering the evidence itself.

She does, as predicted, love the video quality, the ultra-responsive drone cam controls and monitoring software.

“It’s mil-grade, but like, Israeli mil-grade with Japanese manufacture,” she breathes. “This is so cool. How – if you can tell me, I mean – ”

“A friend we did site-sec for,” Jamie explains. “He’s ex-military. We’re sending him a bunch of test data in return for using this stuff.”

“You have some nifty friends,” McKenna says. “I’ll copy the data onto a working drive,” she murmurs, her voice dropping into a crooning reverie as she plugs a thumb drive into the monitor laptop, “That way I only have to touch you this once, and then we put you back in your safe, all – warm – and – snug.” And as the data transfer completes, she unplugs the drive and does just that, flicking back forth between a couple of screens to make sure everything is operating before closing the safe again. She next slips the drive into her own laptop, copies the video files, and then drops the drive into an evidence bag.

“Thank you, my good and trusty servant,” she intones, sealing the bag.

“You talk to all your tech?” Jamie asks, amused. McKenna looks up.

“Doesn’t everyone?”

Eddie put her head in at the door just then. “Guys, the Commissioner’s here.”

“Oh!” McKenna straightens up and dusts off her navy and khaki working uniform. “I’ve never met him,” she hisses. “I look okay?”

Eddie mimes tucking a wisp of hair back in to her bun. McKenna does so and looks up, and Eddie gives her a thumbs-up.

*** *** ***

Half an hour later, McKenna has been fully briefed on the goings-on of the past few months, from Frank’s initial decision to send Jamie and Eddie undercover, to the growing evidence that Sergeant Foster is somehow involved.

On Jamie’s big-screen television, they’ve all watched the short videos of Theo Sipowicz using what looks like an ordinary clicker to access the parkade, and then a master key to open the Mustang’s driver side door. Once inside, all he appears to have done is to look around briefly, and then withdrawing as quickly as he came. All in all, he wasn’t inside the car for more than ten full seconds. The gate video shows him leaving right afterwards. There’s no evidence that he placed anything on, or in the car, even if he’d had time to do so.

Jamie explains his theory of how Theo was reeled in. Frank agrees, but thinks there’s also more to it.

“You weren’t around for a lot of the action that made Andy Sipowicz the topic of more than one force-wide warning,” Frank says, “Andy’s made up for a great deal, but he’s still sitting on piles of dirt we’d all like to forget. If someone told you that about me, in your first year, and offered you a chance to make some of it go away, what would you have done?”

It’s in Frank’s hands now to decide how to approach Andy Sipowicz, and ask his help in bringing his son in for questioning, without anything appearing on the books at the One-Two, or anywhere else.

“You were on our list of people to interview very soon,” he explains to McKenna, turning to her, “But I’m glad you were available to help us today.”

“It’s a pleasure, sir, I mean – not a pleasure, but it’s been good,” she stumbles, but picks herself up. “I’m just glad nothing else was done to the car. I’ll see if I can clean these up and isolate images of the clicker and the car key, but if you already know who it is…”

“Thank you. Now in regards to the situation with Sergeant Foster: when was the first time you were called into work for him? Don’t worry if you can’t remember exactly, we – ”

“October 2nd of last year, sir.”

“Ah. And you remember that because…”

“Because I had just met your other son a few days before. Then in mid-November, when Sergeant Foster asked me to identify and find images of Officer Reagan and Officer Janko online, at the Montauk New Music Festival, he first asked me if I knew your family. So that seemed an odd coincidence, and I kept it in mind. Since then I’ve been sent out to the Five-Four a few times to help Detective Reagan with video analysis on cases. I thought – I assumed he or Lt. Carver had requested me, since I was able to help them before.”

“That’s probably so.”

“Yes, sir, but then Sergeant Foster always seems to know when I’ve been sent out there, and he asks after your son and his partner, Detective Baez. He seems to know I’ve gotten friendly with them both. Now, it could just be that IAB is _supposed_ to know what goes on everywhere, but…”

“That would creep me out,” Eddie states bluntly.

“Danny’s never mentioned Sergeant Foster. Neither has Baez, as far as I know,” Jamie adds.

Frank considers this. “So if Sergeant Foster is attempting to get information about Danny and Baez from you, and seems to know when you’ve been sent out to the Five-Four, that could indicate a significant source of information he’s tapped into. What has he had you working on recently?”

“Video surveillance taken from an alley behind a bar,” McKenna says promptly. “Three cameras, two from business across the alley, and from a dry-cleaners next door. IAB’s been watching activity at the back door of the bar. I’m not sure why. I haven’t seen any uniforms or identifiable NYPD on the videos. I assume it’s an undercover op. All I’ve been asked to do so far is create a time-stamp inventory of who goes in and out of the back and what they do, using letters to identify each person. That’s standard evidence prep – it makes it easier to locate which video and which position to go for each event.”

Jamie looks up. “What bar?” he asks.

“It’s called Gracie’s Tavern. It was falling to bits a few years ago, but it was bought up by a family who owns a bunch of restaurants. Um, one of those Italian families who owns quite a lot of restaurants and small business all over town, if you get my drift.”

Jamie looks at his father and feels a sudden dizziness, as well as a shock of excitement that _this is it. This is the connection that’s going to tie it all together._

“Whose name is on the property?” Frank asks.

“Sanfino. A Phillip Sanfino Jr., I think.”

Eddie, sitting beside him, reacts sharply, but Jamie knew it before she spoke. It’s one of Noble’s cousins, and from the sound of it, the eldest son of the most violently ruthless of the Sanfino uncles. And somehow Frosty knows of the derelict bar’s re-opening, and has gotten neighbouring businesses to share their camera footage – probably in the name of good citizenship and helping keep organized crime out of the area. In fact, Jamie’s willing to bet, organized crime never had it so good before it met Sergeant Foster. Which is a very serious and damning statement, but in his gut he knows it’s true.

And if McKenna is right, and the only reason that she hasn’t actually _seen_ the cops that IAB is watching is because they’re working undercover…

“We should have talked to you months ago, Detective,” Frank says slowly. “I fear we’ve lost a lot of valuable time.” He stands up. “I have to go visit an old friend, who isn’t going to want to see me,” he says. “We need to bring everyone together, tonight if possible. Detective McKenna, you’re under no obligation, but would you join us at my house for dinner? There is a lot we need to unravel before we decide how to progress.”

“Are you kidding?” McKenna blurts out, “I wouldn’t miss it. I mean, thank you – thank you, sir, of course I’ll be there. Just tell me where and when.”

Frank smiles at this. “No uniforms necessary in my house, not off-duty,” he tells her, “And please call me Frank under my own roof. May I ask what your first name is?”

McKenna, surprisingly, flushes a little. “Um,” she says, “I’m Hazel. It’s a bit old-fashioned, but...”

“It suits you. Thank you so much for coming out.” Frank shakes her hand as he makes ready to leave. “Everyone, let’s say six o’clock tonight at the house. I’ll call Danny and Erin myself. And Ms. Gabany. Jamie, Eddie, feel free to explain anything you feel is useful to Hazel meanwhile.”

Jamie gets up to see his father out the door. As they reach it, he murmurs, “ _Anything_ , Dad? What about Joe? I mean, yeah, we need to widen the circle for the sake of evidence, but maybe we can keep back stuff that’ll put people in danger just for knowing it?”

“She’ll talk to you about things she might not to someone like me,” Frank murmurs back. “Keep her talking a little longer. I’ve got to go explain to one of the great redeemed souls of the NYPD that his son is being sucked into a life of graft and blackmail.”

“Well, I wish you luck. Go easy on Theo if you see him.”

“You’re still angry with me,” Frank observes, swirling his raincoat over his shoulders and finding the armholes.

Jamie can only nod, slightly. “Less,” he says, truthfully, “Let’s just see what we learn today, all right?”

“I’ll see you at the house.”

“We’ll be there.”

His father steps outside.

Carmody and Hanover, who have been patiently standing outside the door the whole time, pull quick salutes and follow him down the hallway to the elevator.


	21. Chapter 21

_A/N: I swear, I had no idea that NYPD Blue was being considered for a re-boot, when I grabbed Andy and Theo Sipowicz for a guest spot here! I see that Theo, who was just a little kid when NYPD Blue ended, will be a young detective, carrying the banner for his retired father and fallen brother. I hope it goes well, because NYPD Blue and Cagney & Lacey are in many ways the natural parents of Blue Bloods..._

*** *** ***

“Keep Hazel talking” may have been one of Frank’s semi-orders, but it’s an easy one to carry out. Since McKenna can’t dismiss herself from a scene to which the PC himself has assigned her, she’s happy to accept a second coffee and stick around Jamie’s apartment until Frank returns. It might be an hour, or it might be until mid-afternoon: Frank has gone to visit Andy Sipowicz. In addition to investigating the _how_ and especially the _why_ of Theo Sipowicz’ access to Jamie’s car, Frank and Andy have thirty-odd years of shared NYPD history.

It’ll be a difficult conversation, Eddie thinks. Andy will remember every detail of the original Blue Templar formation, disgrace and dissolution. How it came at the same time as his own downward spiral into alcoholism and fear-based, bigoted lash-outs, so that he was held in suspicion too, as the entire NYPD came under strict scrutiny and public retaliation. Andy is retired now and well into physical and emotional recovery. And now his youngest son, their friend Theo, is just starting his police career. His old man’s past makes him highly vulnerable to pressure.

The _why_ is the bigger mystery today. Has someone figured out that Jamie is actively watching for Templar activity, from his new position, and wants to keep an eye on him? Or is it retaliation for Malevsky – a dry run at another car sabotage?

Jamie thinks it’s likely that Theo was sent as a test, to see if Jamie’s keys had been successfully copied and to check his levels of security. Whoever sent Theo wasn’t expecting an instant alert to be sent by the car camera. Though they’ll probably figure that out as soon as Theo is pulled off shift.

Eddie hopes he’s right. But she’s worried that Theo makes a perfect patsy, and that Maldonaldo and Foster are controlling enough official records that they could discredit anything Theo says about them.

There are too any unknowns.

Just for the moment, in each other’s company, the three of them are keeping up the pretence of being fine, until Frank checks in again. They’re in a holding-pattern in which they are far safer at Jamie’s place than anywhere else, but only for a limited time. They’ve got to sleep sometime. If they don’t return to work tomorrow, they’ll be even more conspicuous, and now they’ve dragged McKenna into the vortex. Eddie has a hunch they will be told to bring their go-bags – or full suitcases – with them to dinner, and plan to stick around the Reagan house for a while.

So she sits anchored to the old brown couch like a limpet waiting for a safer tide, a highly unusual state of being for her. She’s nervy with it, her arms and legs occasionally twitching. It would be silly to wear her guns and vest around the apartment, but she wishes she had them on. There is no ass to kick and no names to take, just now. So she drinks her coffee and tries to think, listening to Jamie and McKenna geek out over drones and surveillance tech.

“Well, look, I’m not a bug hunter,” the redhead says eventually, carefully stepping off the dining chair she’s been standing on to wave her cellphone over the top of a window frame. She’s got a highly sensitive phone app that detects magnetic radiation fluctuations within eight inches or so. “But I think you’re right. No sign of anything hinky. You might want to get TARU to do a full sweep. We just walk around with a handheld scanner a bit more jacked than this one, and check for acoustic laser beam sensors coming through windows and things. Beats the hell out of taking an apartment to pieces.”

“Doesn’t feel like anyone’s been in here,” Jamie agrees. “Not in the way I already knew someone was in my car. Call it subconscious tracking, whatever, I don’t feel it here.”

He comes back to sit next to Eddie, a warm and solid presence on an extremely weird day. McKenna sits down in the green easy chair on the other side of the coffee table, looking like she might curl up sideways and grab the fuzzy blanket hanging over the chair back, if she was less of a stranger.

Eddie’s known of Detective McKenna for years in a peripheral sort of way, by her reputation as a techie casebreaker, by the occasional comment from Danny about McKenna and Baez amping each other’s sass levels to where he might as well not exist, and because Eddie keeps track of the careers of women cops she hears about. She has spreadsheets and everything. You never know when you’re going to need a Rabbi who’s a big sister – or when a younger one will need pointing in the right direction.

McKenna’s pretty curious about them, as well. She’s only met Jamie once or twice before, when he’s stopped by the two-five to see Danny.

“You undercover guys,” she says, shaking her head as they try to make casual conversation over coffee. “I could not do that. How come I haven’t seen you at Headquarters?”

The TARU techs are under the sole command of their own CO, Inspector Tony Gregson, only four organizational rungs down from Frank’s office. While TARU often travels to scenes and precincts as needed, the One PP is their home base, too. The entire thirty-fourth floor is theirs, one level below the Crime Scene Unit’s forensic biochemistry and material analysis labs, under Detective Sergeant Mac Taylor and Detective First Class Jo Danville. The two units collaborate frequently.

“We’re down on six,” Eddie says, “or in the gym on four, and then most of us are out on assignment unless we need the resources at the One PP, like you.”

“Mm,” McKenna nods, “True. I know we outfit a lot of you guys with comms equipment and recording gack for the field.”

“And alarmed door locks, and panic buttons,” Jamie adds. “Right here, in fact, one time I got caught up in a thing.”

“And panic buttons,” McKenna agrees. The three share a look. No more needs to be said about that. Emergency cop extractions are messy affairs.

Eddie clears her throat. She and Jamie should have been carrying panic buttons for the last couple of months, and she has no doubt they’ll be issued them before the day is out. Even with the risk of the wrong people hearing over the airwaves that one of them is in trouble. She tries to divert the topic. “So, uh, you’re the one who goes through any of the A/V capture from the bugs our guys plant?”

“Me and a few others,” McKenna agrees. “Detective Chan and I came up through the ranks together. We work as a team a lot. Fighting crime through better toys.”

She’s shooting for humor, Eddie thinks, but McKenna has a sterling case track record and a reputation for being fun to work with. Eddie thinks she’d make an excellent addition to Girls Nights.

“And keeping our own house clean,” Eddie adds. She’d love to know more about the cops that McKenna has spotted on camera, in the act of committing crimes in the heart of their own precincts, but that will have to wait. They’re all under confidentiality, even to each other, despite Frank being their common handler at this point. It’s pretty silly, since they’re all going to be sharing everything they know over dinner, but till then, it’s safer for everyone to know only what they need to know.

“That, too. That shit makes me sick. I mean, here we are, busting our asses trying to keep people safe and, you know, _alive_ , and one or two assholes in uniform come along and basically confirm every shitty, made-up news story about us to the haters.”

“It’s in every big police force in the world,” says Jamie. “That’s the draw, for some of them. Power and access.”

“But we have body cams now, so everything’s groovy,” McKenna gestures ironically with her coffee cup. She holds up a finger and gets serious again, taking a sip. “Mm. In fact, one thing I can tell you right now is that that’s one of the projects I was doing for Frosty, on those overtime weekends. Before the body cam pilot rolled out, I was looking into how easy they’d be to hack into. Like, tech companies can say what they want about their security, but nothing, I mean, _nothing_ is un-hackable. So one of the first questions IAB had to answer was, how hard is that to do? Can we explain to a judge what sort of skills a cop, or their accomplice, would need to hack in and edit the time-stamps, or make it look like the camera borked at some critical moment? Can we stand up in court and prove that Officer Whatshisface couldn’t possibly have altered the video that proves a civilian complaint was bogus?”

“Since people online seem to think we can all do that anyway,” Eddie sighs. “Because obviously, hundreds of thousands of tax dollars went out the door just to make it look like we’re finally paying attention to our own problems. According to People on the Internet.”

“Didn’t one blow up last week?” Jamie remembers.

“One blew up last week,” McKenna confirms. “While it was being worn, and now there’s a massive recall on that model, and a new round of anti-cop memes. There’s a wild and woolly bunch out there that think that a cop would _blow up_ something clipped to his chest just so other cops will be able to indulge in shenanigannery without camera evidence.”

“Ugh.” Eddie rolls her eyes, hard.

Jamie sits up straighter, remembering something. “Hang on,” he says. “That reminds me: how close does the CCTV in One PP get to the locker rooms? I’m guessing they can’t record inside, but what about outside? I was thinking that the lockers are the only place Eddie and I would ever leave keys unattended during the day. Just when we’re in the gym, and just each other’s spare sets, but…”

Eddie feels a nauseating lurch in her stomach. “We keep our tactical bags with our everyday keys and phones and notebooks and things within sight, even in the gym,” she tells McKenna, “But the spares we keep separate, so if anything happens to ours, we don’t lose each other’s. Doesn’t explain the key to the Mustang, but yeah, if someone broke into my locker, they’d have Jamie’s clicker and apartment key to copy. We keep talking like it’s only men involved. For all we know there could be women, too. D’you really think that might be how they got them? I’ve never noticed a thing out of place. Sometimes I even left a hair across the pins…”

“Serious?” asks McKenna, with rapt attention. “You guys spy novel fans or something?”

“Just serious,” Eddie replies, “That’s the level we’ve been told to stay vigilant, but then this happened anyway.”

“Not your fault,” Jamie chides her gently. “Or mine.”

“Well – from a techie point of view, let’s start with what kind of locks you got.” McKenna suggests.

“Standard combo locks with four side dials,” Eddie says. “Random combinations from the manufacturer. Nothing predictable.”

“Ten thousand permutations. Someone determined enough might work away at it, if they knew you were in the gym for a certain length of time every day, but that’s pretty obsessive.” McKenna says, thoughtfully. “I mean, is it possible? Sure, but it doesn’t seem like a good use of anyone’s time and risk. To answer you, Reagan, the in-house CCTV covers every hallway in the One PP. Bathroom and locker rooms only on the outside, right up to the doorway, because if something goes on in there, the only evidence we can get is what happened just outside the door. Are you assigned lockers?”

“Nope, we use whatever’s free,” Eddie says, “So they’d have to have seen which ones we were using. This does sound like a dead end.”

Jamie sits back, letting his fingers slide through Eddie’s, upon her knee, and offers a comforting squeeze. “For now, we can’t discount it outright, obsessive or not. Our trainers and classmates were the only ones who knew where we were during training,” he thinks out loud. “And there was that one time Sergeant Pascal was watching us doing drills, with Frosty. We gotta figure out what their connection is, too. Pascal’s never seemed to have an actual beef with me, just my dad, but there’s something there.” He explains briefly to McKenna: “It was just for a second – they might have both been walking past the gym at the same time and heard us killing each other in there, and looked in, or they might have met up before and came down to check it out. The CCTV might give us a hint.”

“They’ll have to look through every minute we were ever in the gym,” Eddie points out, “If we really wanted to know anyone who ever got within reach of our stuff. Is that a good use of someone’s time, either? At least we know exactly when that thing with Pascal and Frosty happened, ‘cause that was the day you cracked a rib.”

“Ouch,” McKenna winces, “Yeah, we’re going to have to go through all the tapes. Unless Theo can tell the PC how the keys were copied. Did you guys have regular training times? That’ll help. I’ll take a closer look at that car-cam footage of yours back at the office, see if I can make out any more details.”

“I should sit with you for that. I wish I could search the car myself. I’d know if something was touched. But no way Dad’s gonna let me risk that. Who knows what they might have put on it somewhere?”

“Yeah, that’s gonna end up at the Forensics garage,” McKenna says, sympathetically. “Yours, too, just to be sure,” she says to Eddie. “Hey, have you got one of those cameras in yours?”

“Yeah, but I haven’t had any alerts,” Eddie says, with a sigh. Silver Belle being stripped down and covered in print dust is a horrible thought. And cleanup is not CSU’s job. She wonders if maybe she could ask to observe the process, at least to point out how the rear-windshield camera is inset into the lining. Then she wonders how it would feel to have to watch.

“So much for Montecello,” Jamie realizes. “We were supposed to go for that racing date in a couple weeks.

“Shit, yeah.”

“ _Montecello_?” McKenna asks, her eyes widening. “For real?”

“A security favor we did for a private client got us a big thank-you,” Jamie explains briefly. He turns to Eddie: “We should call Augustus and explain. We need to get him the regular drone stats he wanted, and he’ll want to know how the camera responded to an actual alert. And he might have some more ideas.”

As much as Eddie is looking forward to seeing Augustus again, she can picture the look on his face. Their connections have been brief, but important, and he clearly considers them his people, in the military sense. If they mess up, it reflects back on him. “He’s gonna take it out of our hides that we lost focus and this happened.”

“We still don’t know exactly what happened,” Jamie reminds her. “Just keep thinking.”

“I feel like that’s all we’ve _been_ doing,” Eddie replies, “All this thinking and getting paranoid, prepping for some big showdown, and then Theo, who we like and trust, just walks up and lets himself into your car, ‘cause someone _he_ trusted gave him the keys and asked him to check on it. ‘Cause he’s proud to call you his friend.”

Jamie pulls a face. “Pointed, Janko.”

“Tell me I’m wrong.”

“You’re not wrong.”

*** *** ***

The front door of the modest brown brick row house opens wide, and Andy Sipowicz steps out with a smile and a broadly welcoming arm that Frank doesn’t feel like he deserves today. Andy looks like he has found a measure of peace. He is still big and balding and rumpled-looking, but looks more at home in himself now, in baggy jeans and a soft old once-white button-down, a brown V-neck sweater and house moccasins. His eyes, though wary of this unplanned meeting, are no longer rheumy and red with chronic hangover, and he doesn’t smell like unfiltered cigarettes and Jack and breath mints but faintly of dog. Good signs, Frank thinks.

 Andy keeps his gaze on the retired Commander as the security detail advances up the stairs, and Carmody politely asks to do a spot check of the house.

“Looking good, Andy,” Frank greets him with a clap on the shoulder, as they wait. “Retirement suits you.”

“You gotta try it one of these years,” Andy returns. “You good, Sir? Family all good?”

“Doing well. Now we’ve got two of the grandkids joining up, after college.” Carmody steps back onto the stoop and nods, taking up a guarding pose, and Andy leads Frank inside. Once in the front living room overlooking the street, Andy waves Frank to one of the two reclining chairs facing a large-screen plasma TV, and gets serious, standing with his hands on his ample hips.

“Commissioner, I can’t offer you a beer anymore, but you want some tea? I just made some. Then maybe you tell me what’s going on.”

“Not just now, but you go ahead. And please, it’s just Frank. I’m not your commissioner anymore.”

Andy shrugs, _have it your way, Boss_ , and takes up the other recliner, and eyes Frank more warily than before, reaching for his mug of milky tea. “You’dn’t be like this if something happened to Theo,” he intuits.

“Theo’s fine. I need to speak to you both. I’ve asked his CO to pull him off duty and tell him that you’re okay and his brother’s okay, but there’s some family business that needs him to come straight here. One of my detectives will bring him here.”

“Family business, is it?”

Frank watches Andy’s face carefully as he says: “No. Templar business.”

Andy’s mouth pops open under his moustache and he flushes. “Now, wait a minute, you know I never went near those clowns, right? I made plenny mistakes, but they weren’t one. First I wasn’t near good enough for ‘em, and then when they showed their true colors, I di’n’t want anything to do with ‘em.”

“I know.”

“I did my share of things I’m not proud of, but never that. Not _stealing_ , not using people – not like that.”

“I know, Andy, believe me. You had other demons. And you fought them, and your boys looked up to you so much they became cops, too.”

Andy looks embarrassed and self-mocking and proud, and quickly prevaricates, “I thought those young Templar wannabes got dealt with a few years back when you – ” he raises a large hand. “Don’t tell me, I don’t want the details. I only heard it from a guy who heard from a guy.”

_Interesting_ , Frank thinks. He needs to send out feelers to find out what the gossip mill is saying about his involvement the Templar takedown and Malevsky’s suicide these days. For all he knows, people might think he and Danny and Jamie all went in with guns blazing and took down every last one.

“Let’s say a few didn’t take the hint when we cracked down on them a few years back. First off, I don’t think Theo has done anything wrong. I think he may have been brought under the influence of people who want to take advantage of his good intentions.”

“Like a messenger boy? That level? That’s how they usually start. Here, do this for us, we’ll let you sit with us. And anyone who keeps their trap shut just contributes to the problem, and it makes it harder every day to wanna be a cop at all, knowing what’s going on around you,” Andy finishes, “So really, you get caught up just by seein’ somethin’ you shouldn’t have.”

“Exactly. And I think Theo’s in the very early stages of being recruited, but he doesn’t know it yet. He probably just thinks he’s found a new mentor, since my youngest was transferred to Undercover. Since I had him transferred.”

Andy looks at him with a deeper understanding. That’s the guilt that brought Frank in person to relay this news.

“So what’s he done to make you think so?” he asks.

“It looks like he was given the key to Jamie’s car, and a parkade remote – or rather, a copy of both,” Frank explains “We think he was asked to do a site check on Jamie’s car and parkade. Which is odd, but Theo wouldn’t know that. For all he knew, it might be a common courtesy to check on an officer’s things while he’s working undercover. We know because Jamie’s car security system got clear video of him in the car. Theo looks like he’s just doing his job and then leaving. We need to know who gave him the keys. I need to know from you if he’s ever talked about any senior officers taking him under their wing, or giving him new opportunities. And if you had any issues with the Templar at the One-Five, or with anyone at the One-Two now. You and I lived through it the first time, Andy. You don’t know this, but that’s what got my boy killed on the job – trying to take them down. Can you help me?”

“Jesus, Commish, I’m sorry. I didn’t know it was like that. Nah, we didn’t have any real trouble the first time ‘round. I mean, we thought the Blue Templar was this high-falutin honor organization, not for the likes of us workin’ the beat and doin’ whatever we had to do out there. If only we knew they were up to so much worse, we mighta felt better about ourselves.”

“Ever have a Maldonaldo or a Foster work out of your precinct?”

“No, not that I can think of. Theo talks about a Sergeant Maldonaldo, that him?”

“That’d be him. Andy – ” Frank leans forward. “I have to ask: does Theo know about some of the trouble you got into back in the day? Could someone be using that to make him their messenger boy, or they’ll bring up the past publicly?”

“No, nothing like that. I don’t know what he knows, but I don’t think so. He was just a little kid. He’s so excited every day just to put on the uniform, you know? He talks about his cases, he says he feels like he’s finally getting his feet under him on the job. Commish, he’s – he’s still just a kid. He’s barely legal, for Chrissake. He’s only halfway through Probation. What’s this gonna do to him?”

“We’ll take care of him.”

Theo won’t return to the One-Two, Frank decides. He can take a short leave, and they can put it about that Andy’s had a health crisis that needs extra care or something. Theo can finish his probation year somewhere else. Frank will make sure he’s not set up for retribution, as best he can, even if it means posting him upstate until this is all over.

Andy’s hand is noticeably trembling as he lifts his mug of tea. Frank feels a complex mix of many things: regret that he can’t offer Andy a drink of anything stronger, admiration that Andy would have the strength to turn it down. And the gut-deep need to pluck another son out from the fire before they lose him.

The turn of the lock rouses them from their brief silence. Theo slams the door in his haste, and then appears in the living room, a tall, gangly kid belted into a uniform that hangs on his shoulders a little. He’s much more his mother’s kid than Andy’s. Not a bit like Andy Jr.

“Dad! Are you okay? What’s – whoa, you’re the – sorry, Sir – ”

Theo pulls himself into a sharp salute and stares straight ahead, clearly sweating bullets with anxiety. Frank returns the salute. “At ease, Officer. Everyone’s fine.”

“Siddown, son,” Andy says gruffly. “I’m doing good. You aren’t in any trouble. Looks like trouble might be circling around _you_ , and the Commissioner wants to make sure it don’t come any closer.”

Theo sits on the battered couch and pulls off his duty cap, turning it in his hands.

“It’s about Officer Reagan’s car, isn’t it, Sir? I’m so sorry, I swear all I did was check the security light was still on and everything looked okay, like I was told to.”

“I believe you. Jamie knows that’s all you did, too,” Frank tells him. “Let’s start from the beginning. Who’s your TO?”

“Officer Leyton, Sir. Great teacher, eight-year officer.”

“So on a normal shift, you and Officer Leyton would be assigned a patrol sector, and go out in the car – or on foot?”

“On foot, Sir. Midtown, Midtown East, usually.”

“Okay. And this morning?”

“The Desk Sergeant asked us to take out a car and do a check on Officer Reagan’s apartment parkade and his car, before we came back and started our foot patrol.”

“The parkade and car, but not his apartment?” Frank confirms. “Don’t mind me if I take notes.”

“No, Sir. Sergeant Maldonaldo just told us Jamie – I mean Officer Reagan asked someone to check on his Mustang, ‘cause it’s sort of his pride and joy, you know, so he wanted to make sure it was okay while he’s working with Undercover. It was Officer Leyton who said it was an unusual order. I don’t know, it sounded reasonable to me. It’s nowhere near our usual beat, but you know, Sarge said Officer Reagan asked for me to do it ‘specially ‘cause he trusted me, so...”

“Who was it who gave you the clicker and car key?”

“Sergeant Maldonaldo had them. He said they were Officer Reagan’s spares, that he’d passed off when he came by to see the old crowd.”

“Okay. And did he say when exactly Officer Reagan dropped by the One-Two?”

“Oh, not the One-Two, Sir. He said Officer Reagan met his old shift for drinks at Harper’s, sometime last week, didn’t say what day.”

“So that’ll explain why no Jamie on the precinct cameras,” Andy mutters. “If anyone tries to corroborate that. What else he say about the keys, Theo? Anything at all.”

“He said I should hold onto them. Here.” Theo un-velcros a pocket on his uniform pants, and pulls them out. “He said he might ask me to go again sometime.”

Frank shares a glance with Andy. “So one of two things: this Sarge knows he can make more copies anytime, or he wanted’a plant the keys on Theo for some future use.” Andy says. Frank nods slowly, accepting the key and clicker from Theo’s outstretched hand. He’s pretty sure that Forensics won’t be able to find much of interest, except perhaps a possible source of blanks.

“Theo. I need you to listen up. We have reason to believe that Sergeant Maldonaldo is not only _not_ a friend of Jamie and Eddie’s, but he’s part of a group within the NYPD that is using the job to commit crimes. We know you have nothing to do with that. We think he was about to begin pressuring you to do more and more of these small favors, always looking like it was a reasonable order, until you were in too deep to get out.”

He does not say “And he would certainly have blackmailed you with what he knows about your old man, if you looked like backing away.” Andy can explain that later, if he wants to.

Theo can only nod and mumble, “Yes, Sir.”

“Now, Sergeant Maldonaldo didn’t know that we’ve had surveillance on Jamie’s car for a while now, and that he received an instant alert as soon as you got inside. That’s given us this window. We’ll be dealing with him shortly. We don’t know if he’s working with others at the One-Two, or if he’s the only one of the group there, so we need to pull you out for a while. We’ll post you somewhere beyond all this mess to finish your probation.”

Theo relaxes a fraction on the couch. “I wish I knew what to say. I wish I could tell you more. I never see Sergeant Maldonaldo being, like, _friends_ with anyone there, just giving orders. Sometimes he’s a bit, you know, old-school with trying to flirt with the female cops, and they don’t like that much. But I don’t know who on earth he’d be close enough to, to actually do stuff like commit crimes with them. Honestly, I was kinda surprised when he said he was out for drinks with the shift, ‘cause he never seemed the type.”

“I’m glad you don’t know any more than that,” Frank tells him.

“I feel just stupid,” Theo says, flat-out. “I don’t know why I didn’t see it sooner.”

“Because you’re a good kid,” Andy answers gruffly, “And you see the best in everyone. You hadda grow outta that sometime, in this job, but I wish it wasn’t like this.”

“Just a couple more questions for now,” Frank says. “You ever hear of a Sergeant Foster?”

“I know the name, Sir, yes, but I haven’t met him. He’s with Internal Affairs? Yeah, Sergeant Renzulli said something about him, but that was months ago. Just after I started there. He was the one who checked out Officer Reagan and Janko before they went into Undercover, or something? I remember ‘cause when they were pulled off their regular patrols, and that’s how we became friends, ‘cause they were always in the office to talk to when I was new.”

“Something like that. You never saw Sergeant Foster at the One-Two, or heard anyone else say anything about him?”

“No – kind of?  One time I heard someone – I heard one of the officers making a kinda bad joke about one of the prisoners, doing something gross to one of the prisoners, and someone else saying Sergeant Foster would look the other way, and they laughed. I don’t know which officers, they were out of sight. But that’s just how some of the guys talk, especially overnight.”

“I know. This was about a female prisoner?”

Theo looks down at his cap, in his hands. “It sounded like it. I remember thinking at the time, Jeez, I hope I heard that wrong.”

“Think back. What did you hear?”

Flushing, Theo looks back up with difficulty, but won’t meet their eyes. “The one officer said he figured that number whatever-she-was would choose to not stay in cells overnight if he gave her an alternative choice, and it turned out he was right. And the other one said, well, Foster’ll look the other way, or if he doesn’t, he’ll enjoy the show. I think the other one said, ‘are you sure about that?’ or ‘I wouldn’t be sure of that’ or something.”

“You’re sure Sergeant Maldonaldo wasn’t one of the speakers?”

“No, Sir, I’m sure of it, ‘cause he was upstairs typing in all the nights’ paperwork.”

“Okay,” Frank responds mildly, and thinks for a moment. “You ever hear anyone talking or joking about taking money, or guns or anything from evidence, or not entering things into evidence, anything like that?”

“Oh, I mean, people joke about that all the time, you know, like, ‘That kid in cell sixteen had a nice piece on him, I could do with one myself’ sorta thing. I don’t…” Theo looks increasingly uncomfortable. “Thing is, I wouldn’t jump to thinking another cop would mean anything by it. So even if someone said something like that, I might just pass it off.”

“Nothing that made you think, what if they’re really talking about taking valuables from evidence?”

“I’d have to think more, Sir, really. They mighta done. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry. Thank you, Theo. I want you to consider yourself on paid leave for one week, starting now. _Do not go back to the One-Two_. Don’t answer any calls, texts of e-mails from anybody at work. Anybody. My office will let your CO know that you’ve had a family emergency and should not be disturbed. Meantime, I want you to think of any conversations you’ve had, with Sergeant Maldonaldo or anyone else, that struck you as strange, like you said, and write down notes for me. You can talk to me about this, and your father, but that’s all. You don’t need to explain anything to Jamie. I can tell you he’s only concerned for you, and he’ll be glad to talk to you later. Can you stay here with your father for a little while? Just so we know where you both are.”

He makes a mental note to send TARU to fortify the house more than Andy, being a paranoid military vet and police commander himself, already has.

“We should call your line directly, if…?” Andy asks, with meaning. Frank nods.

“If you need police assistance, don’t call 911, just for next little while. Call me during the day, or my security detail overnight.” He pulls out a card case from his breast pocket, and slips out a card to add more details by hand. “You can safely leave messages with Detective Baker. I’d like to have a trace put on your house phone, Andy. And Theo, do you have a phone call recording app on your cell? We’ll set you up with one if not. Hold onto any e-mails, texts, voicemails, everything.”

“Is this – Sir, is this about the female prisoners?” Theo sounds physically sick. “It wasn’t just like a guy joke? _Other cops_ have been messin’ around with them? And Sarge knows all about it? I mean, I know the women don’t like the way he talks to ‘em…I don’t like it, either.”

“It’s organized crime, Theodore,” his father answers instead, heavily. “Guns, girls, gold and ganga, we used to call it. Hasn’t changed much. They’ve just stolen our uniform to do it in.”

“This is something Officer Reagan has been looking into. That’s the connection to him,” Frank explains succinctly, “You should know you might both be in danger, you and your dad. I’m sorry for that.”

“We’re ready,” Andy grunts.

“The detective who brought you here will run you home and back, Theo, so you can pack up what you think you’ll need for a week of looking after your dad. You want to make it look like that’s all that’s going on. We’ll set you up with groceries and whatever you need, so you won’t have to go out much. And we’ll have someone keeping an eye on you.”

“Guess I’m gonna be watching the Giants’ 2012 season again,” Andy says, with heavy humor, “What’d I have, Commish? The heart attack I oughta had years back, or a kidney stone?”

“Your choice.”

_Not a bad bit of business, in the grand scheme,_ Frank thinks. That could have gone much worse.

Now to have a twenty-two year Sergeant arrested and his records seized with as little disruption as possible, before he knows what’s going on.

They can hold Maldonaldo for twenty-four hours while they investigate, or longer, if they can bring probable cause for conspiracy to assist organized crime. It’s a big gamble that tonight’s dinner meeting will bring in enough leads to collect suitable grand jury evidence against Maldonaldo and Foster, too. It’s an even bigger gamble that those two are the ringleaders. Still – a nest of vipers hidden within Internal Affairs and Undercover does have a certain irony to it that probably appeals to them.

“I’ll take you up on that tea in a couple of days, Andy, and update you as best I can,” he says, getting to his feet. “That’s a really great chair. My dad would love one.”

“Sir?” Theo says suddenly, looking up. “I did think of something that might’ve been for real. And it was Sergeant Maldonaldo who said it. We had a guy come in with thirteen grand on him, in hundreds and twennies, from a poker game. I was the new guy, so I got told to count it all. Then the Booking Officer did a recount, and then Sarge said to carry it up to him, so he could count it again at his desk. So I did, but when I asked if the arresting officer shouldn’t be there, too, to put it in an evidence bag and sign it like he’s supposed to, he just laughed and said that’s what the cameras are for.”

“The CCTV over the front lobby?”

“Yeah. He pointed up and said, ‘We don’t gotta watch each other anymore, now that we’re always being watched’. But I watched him count it out anyway, and it matched the other counts. He put it in an evidence bag, but I never saw him seal it up. I got called away and I didn’t see what happened next. And he had this look on his face when he was talking to me, like he didn’t know if I was gonna be a problem. I thought it was just that I was acting like a rookie, wasting his time. But now I look back, I think maybe he was worried I might let it slip to someone. And I wasn’t in the booking office, so I don’t know for sure if it ever got logged in as evidence.”

*** *** ***

Frank calls just after eleven, sounding younger than Jamie’s heard him in years.

“We’re moving on Maldonaldo,” he says quickly, dropping the _Sergeant_ from his title deliberately “We don’t think he’ll have any way to know we’re onto him before we get there. We’re getting all the Desk Sergeant records and computers, the booking and evidence records, the house CCTV, the lot. Theo’s safe with Andy, and a pair of watchers on Andy’s house. That camera of yours did the trick, Jamie. Theo checking on your car is the thin edge of the wedge to split this thing wide open, and it’s bought us time we’d never have had otherwise.”

“He named Maldonaldo?” Jamie confirms, checking to see that Eddie’s getting this.

“Good kid!” she raises her fist from her place on the couch.

“And mentioned Sergeant Foster’s possible involvement to my satisfaction, along with Detective McKenna’s information, at least to bring him in for questioning. We’ll be rounding him up as well. If Maldonaldo has any buddies at the one-two, we don’t want them alerting Foster. But just to check,” Frank goes on drily, “you never had drinks with Maldonaldo and gave him your spare keys?”

“Say what now? That’s his story?”

“That’s Theo’s version of his side of the story. Just doing my due diligence.”

“That’d be a no. Listen, speaking of the keys, we had a brainwave here. May be nothing, but we want McKenna to get access to the CCTV at the One PP. Just the cameras that cover the hallways outside the men’s and women’s locker rooms on Four. Maybe more, later. It’s a wild hunch, but there’s an outside chance that our spare keys might been gotten to while we were in the gym.”

“An outside chance is still a chance. I’ll have Baker request Detective McKenna’s services and send a car for her. That’ll keep her busy and in a safe place while we’re dealing with Sergeant Foster. And I’m sending another car for you and Eddie. I want you – ”

“To plan on spending some time with you and Pop at the house, yeah, we figured that much.”

There’s a pause.

“We’ve lost too many kids,” Frank says, with something near to a wobble. “At this point, I’m less concerned with us blowing up under the same roof than knowing you’re alive.”

“I’m not mad at you, Dad. Not anymore. Especially not if we’re going to bring Danny and Erin in properly now. At least Eddie and I can keep working, if we can ride in with you and the detail. It’s Danny who’s gonna be the most pissed with you.”

“Rightfully so.”

“And he’s got his own house to go cool off at. So. We’ll pack up what we can here, and butt out. Then go to Eddie’s on the way to yours, grab whatever she needs.”

“Yeah. An hour enough for you?”

“More than enough. But couple favors, if possible? We know both our cars will have to be taken in to CSU. I should be here to let them into the parkade, if we can coordinate all the pickups. Eddie wants to make sure hers is loaded and unloaded properly. Maybe watch the CSIs do their thing. Not to check their work. Just, you know, it’s all she’s got from…”

“From her life before. I can’t make any promises, but I owe Mac Taylor a call. And yours?”

“Just be nice to it, all I ask. Still got a lot of work to do on Joe’s Chevelle before it’s driveable.”

There is silence on the line, and Jamie realizes how badly timed but apt he was that comment.

“I mean, uh – ”

“I know, son. I’ll see you back at the house.”

“You know how to reach us meanwhile. Stay safe, Dad.”

Frank pauses. “Nobody’s said that to me in a long time. I will. You, too. All of you.”

They sign off. Jamie slides his phone into his jeans pocket and looks up to find Eddie and McKenna both watching him expectantly.

“As of now,” he says, “Dad’s got people picking up Maldonaldo and Foster, and seizing their records and equipment. Theo and his dad are hunkering down at his dad’s place.”

Eddie swallows. “I don’t know whether that feels anti-climactic, or just the beginning of unravelling this thing.”

“Well, my work’s just beginning,” McKenna says. “What was he saying he wants me to do?”

“Wait for a ride back to the One PP. You’re about to get a proper work order. They want to know where you are, and that you’re safe, especially once Frosty’s picked up. Because yeah, this could be just the beginning of everything coming down.”

“And us?” asks Eddie, getting to her feet. “We’re camping at your Dad’s?”

“Yup. McKenna, I’m sorry, we gotta be anti-social for a bit and go pack.”

“No, no, go ahead. I wanna watch the garage-cam video again, see what else it picks up from Theo coming into the garage. The detail on that thing is incredible.”

“Have at it.”

He follows Eddie into his room, which at least is in decent order for finding and packing necessities they’ll need for a week or so. No longer, he hopes, but they can always come back with extra eyes and arms accompanying them if need be. Eddie has a fair supply of clothes and toiletries at his place, which will make it quicker to pack hers down, but as she points out, they’d planned to do laundry in a day or two.

“We can pretend we’re stereotypical college kids, bringing laundry home on the holidays,” he shrugs, as she scoops am armload of last week’s shirts and jeans and underthings into the duffel she uses to travel between apartments. “Nobody will care, seriously.”

“I know, but it’s – not how I expected to integrate into the Reagan house, you know? Bag of laundry and looking over my shoulder for bad guys.”

“Really?” He slides open his closet and fishes out a garment bag from the top rack. “Seems sort of classic Reagan to me. You want to hang anything up, feel free to use this. We still gotta bring office clothes.”

“Shit. Uniforms would be easier. Plus I’d feel better prepared to handle anything that came at me.”

“Betcha we get permission to wear our guns at work now, even if we’re not in uniform or on active duty.”

“No doubt.” She’s already thinking of how she can incorporate her vest into business-casual, something she didn’t think she’d need within the One PP. It certainly seems the safest place to be, with friendlies watching them and cameras all around, but…

_Oh_. Something comes crashing into her consciousness.

“Hey. Jamie. You know how we thought maybe someone would try to do something to the cars while we were at John Jay, for the Narco course? That’s why we got the drone-cams in the first place.”

“Yeah?”

“We took one car or the other out there every day. We didn’t get any alerts from the garage cameras at home, or from the internal ones in the cars, and we know they were working ‘cause we tested them.

“Okay, and?”

“We were thinking of someone _sabotaging_ the cars, the way…Joe’s was. We thought we were around friendlies all day, and anyway, whichever car we took was in the secure parking lot at the John Jay. All day, and everyone there knew exactly how long the cars were unattended. We weren’t thinking of copying the locks and making backup keys. I don’t know, but I bet it wouldn’t take long.”

He stops layering shirts over a hanger. “Shit. You’re right. Hey, McKenna?” he calls.

“Hey, what?” she calls back

“Can someone make a car key without a physical key to copy, or having to take out the lock manually? And how long would they need?”

“Dammit, Jim, I’m an A/V tech, not a locksmith.”

“Yeah, but you hang out with a bunch of them.”

“That’s true. Give me a few minutes. You’re thinking of yours and Janko’s both?”

“Yeah. 2017 Mustang Saleen and a ‘99 Porsche Boxter.”

“Excellent taste. Let me see what my people have to say.”

Eddie sits on the bed. “Betcha that’s it,” she says, looking a little stunned. “Shit, we literally drove up to their door. If they could read the Mustang’s key fob frequency or whatever from outside, all they’d have to do is walk past like they were just heading into campus.”

“I know garage door openers are pretty easy to clone, but you have to have one to work off of,” Jamie says. “Did you have mine with you that week?”

She shakes her head, but in frustration, not answer. “I had your spare clicker and apartment key in my tactical bag. Did I ever leave it alone, even for a few minutes? God, I don’t know. Wait. Yeah, I did. The one afternoon we did lab work, going over all the field test kits for street drugs – we couldn’t have our bags in the lab, so we left them in the classroom, remember? But there were two instructors there the whole time, keeping an eye…you don’t think they…?”

“I don’t know. But there was someone else there who I trust with my life.”

“Your friend Tariq.”

Choosing to keep a guy company while he’s trying to defuse a bomb on a bus, with only a pair of tin snips and no real training or skills, has a wonderfully bonding effect. And not blowing up the PC’s youngest son is how Tariq went from being in deep cover, undervalued and ignored, to a position of authority and respect with the Joint Terrorism Task Force, as an interception translator and something of a cultural attaché.

“Tariq. And he’s just paranoid enough to notice anyone acting weird, and he remembers things like he’s a camera himself. Which is why he got stuck in Undercover himself for so long. The force couldn’t do without him, but they couldn’t admit they knew about him, either.”

“Wouldn’t he have called, if he had any concerns for you?”

“Sure he would, if something set him off. But not if he didn’t know what to watch for.”

He pulls out his phone, and Eddie goes back to work, with the clock running down on their pickup. It’s not long before he hears a familiar voice greeting him.

“Reagan! Good to hear you, man.”

“You too, buddy. Listen, we need to catch up, but I’ve got a thing going on here.”

“Give me details,” Tariq says, without missing a beat.

Jamie walks Tariq back through their springtime class at the John Jay, and asks him to recall anything that he can about anyone’s behaviour, anyone who seemed to be observing Eddie or himself, or even seemed to ignore them strenuously. Anything about their bags, or their cars. Because, Jamie explained, someone may have taken an opportunity during the course to get into their bags.

Tariq doesn’t ask why they think that. He of anyone understands that sometimes you have to ask context-free questions to protect someone from knowing what can only endanger them.

“No, man, no. I’d have said for sure, if I thought anyone wasn’t totally aboveboard.”

Eddie touches his arm. He looks over. On her phone, she’s typed out: ANYBODY MISS CLASS / STOP COMING?

He nods, and taps her screen approvingly. “Okay, man. Hey, you happen to remember if anyone missed class, or if they stopped turning up?”

“Huh. Now that’s something.”

“What?”

“You remember Romano, from our Academy troop?”

“Of course. But she wasn’t there, I’d have remembered that.” _And how_ , he thinks. He and Casey Romano had had a great old time in their troop, taunting and shoving each other to succeed, with the result that he’d won the Mayor’s Award for top overall marks, and she’d won the Sharpshooter medal. In another life they might have followed that zing to see where it led, but they were both deeply attached to other people, and they weren’t about to hurt anyone.

“No doubt. I was looking forward to it, too, ‘cause she was supposed to be there. She was on the class list I got.”

“Seriously? She can’t have been on mine.”

“No, but if she cancelled later, her name wouldn’t have been on your registration list.”

“You never said anything.”

“Well, no, man, I thought you had same list as me. I know you guys were, you know, pretty close during Academy, and if you didn’t mention her, I figured I better not jam you up.”

“Ah. Well, thanks, but – no, she was just a friend.”

Eddie, puttering beside him with a handful of things from her drawer in the bathroom, smirks at this. He rolls his eyes.

“So there’s a chance she could’ve used her old registration to get into the classroom at some point,” Jamie thinks out loud, “or she may have had a legit reason to come by the college and maybe sign up for a later course.”

“Sure, possibly. But you don’t think Romano would ever do anything that would affect you, even indirectly?”

“The Romano I knew was a hundred-and-ten committed to being the best cop she could be,” Jamie says, “But someone seems to be getting to the people I trust most. Tariq, promise me, if anyone tries to ask you anything about me, or the Templar, or about anything remotely shady, call my father’s office right away.”

“I would call your father, the Governor, the Imam of my mosque and the Monsignor of New York, if I thought anyone might be working against you,” Tariq tells him. “You would have a lot of people walking beside you.”

“I know you would, buddy. Me, too. I’ll explain all this and we’ll catch up properly soon, okay?”

“Watch your back, my brother. Send me something to let me know you’re all right, time to time.”

“I will.”

“You done?” McKenna appears politely in the doorway, once he’s off the phone. “Yes, and two and a quarter minutes are your answers. It would take about fifteen seconds for someone using a handheld key transponder code reader to lock onto the code they needed to mimic your car door fob. It would take you about two minutes more to use a teeny-weeny laser scanner on a filament camera to scan the inside of the lock and generate a 3D printable image of the lock tumblers. Then you can take your time and make the key to fit it. That would work on yours, too,” she nods at Eddie.

He knew it probably wasn’t that difficult, but that sounds ridiculous. “It’s that simple?”

“Well, the technology exists, put it that way. You’d have to order the scanners, almost certainly over a TOR server through the Dark Web, using Bitcoin or a prepaid card, and have an anonymized mailbox or drop point to send them to. Or, find someone anonymous and local who’s willing to meet and sell theirs directly to you. Then, once you’ve got them, you’d have to get close enough to the car for long enough to get the scan. Believe me, standing beside a car for two minutes holding something up to the door is noticeable in daylight. Once you’ve gone to the trouble of getting the equipment, though, you can take your chances where you find them.”

“I could see the whatjamacallit, the transponder option working out,” Eddie says, “Because the car cameras would have picked up someone close enough to stick a wire into the lock. We set the angle to capture anything going on within about ten inches of both front doors, in case someone tried to get in like that. But if someone stood just a foot away for fifteen seconds, could they get a reading?”

“Probably yes,” McKenna says. “and the master key that Theo used is the kind that can have a built-in entry fob in the handle as well as being used like a regular key. But I’ll still look through those bathroom-hallway videos. Is there anything I can help with?” she adds, observing the clothes and gear spread out on the bed. “Anything you’re gonna want from the kitchen?”

“Better bring anything perishable in the fridge,” Eddie says, “We might not be back for a while.”

At least, Jamie thinks, everyone seems to firmly believe this is a _temporary_ state of the world being upside down, with cops turning into criminals, and trusted friends being used against them.

“I got the fridge stuff,” McKenna says, and withdraws.

“Jamie?” Eddie asks softly. “This all really settling in, huh.”

“Just the more I think of it, the more it makes sense that Romano would have had access to our stuff. She’d have plenty of reasons to stop by the campus. Even to be in the classroom, if she was checking in with the instructors. Everyone knew she and Tariq and I were friends in Academy, if she said she wanted to leave a note on my tactical bag or something. But I absolutely can’t see her doing anything she thought would harm me, or anyone, not on purpose.”

“Maybe it wasn’t on purpose. Maybe she thought she was helping, in some way we haven’t figured out yet.” She thinks for a moment, and goes on. “D’you remember, one thing Bojan told me, when I was super pissed with my Dad…there are two types of people the mob goes after. The ones who don’t care, and the ones who care too much, like my Dad, or like Theo. Maybe someone found Romano’s lever and pulled it.”

“It’s the only way any of this makes sense, but it still doesn’t fit with the cop I remember her being. She’s so street-smart, such a people-reader, I don’t see her falling for someone’s story. But I don’t know. You’re right, this is all just sinking in. I just hope Maldonaldo talks soon and explains some of it, because my brain is not going to stop nitpicking the _who_ and _why_ and _how_ it fits in with the Templar business until we have some answers.”

“Well, that’s what dinner tonight is supposed to be for. Not just letting Danny and Erin into the investigation so far, but asking for their insights, too. And it’ll help to have to lay everything out from the beginning, see what we might have missed. Till how we’ve only had hints and ghosts. Today we’ve finally got names that we know _for sure_ are involved.”

“Not exactly how we planned on moving in together,” he manages a small, wry smile, “But it’s the only way we can keep living something like a normal life. Go into work with Dad and his detail, stay visible.”

“So weird,” Eddie wrinkles up her nose. “So here’s a thing: I know the PC would never allow a male and female officer to bunk up on an operation. But is your very Catholic dad going to make us sleep in separate rooms, too?”


End file.
